Frostburn
by Isadora26
Summary: The Third part of the Gods Trilogy. Everything has a Price.


1Chapter One

She could still feel the curtains between her fingers like some distant memory trying to force it's way in through touch where her mind had failed her. The present drapes of the Paradise Hills hotel that she now found between her fingers were a far cry from the sheer silky curtains of her bedroom window...the window that kept floating through her mind as if telling her that there was hope for her memory. Waves of bitter cold swirled around her through the subtle spaces between the windowsill and the wall. She pressed her hand against the icy glass and felt the cold there burn deep into her tender flesh as she starred into a blanket of whit so deep and thick that is held the secrets of the city scape in it's wake.

She was numb to the cold, lost in a world that had succumbed to insanity. She couldn't keep up, couldn't force her immediate anything to make sense. She was terrified. So scared of every moment, every decision, every question...and the answers...the answers were ever worse.

Dean had been in the doorway for what seemed like hours, leaning against the door jam, his hands tucked into his pockets as he watched her through the vapors of his own breath. They hadn't really had a chance to breathe, to think, to talk. Not since the subway. Not since she forgot. Everything between this moment and that subway car had been a rush of action without time for explanations.

So much had happened. Even now downstairs in the lobby...two ghosts from a not so distant past had managed to resume flesh and he didn't know how or why. Ambre couldn't remember anything about the last six months...about their relationship...their baby...That's why he was here now. Dean felt the overwhelming current threatening to drag him under as his sense to make sure everyone else survived with their sanity intact kept him precariously afloat.

Still he had his own demons that he was fighting off at the moment. It took him a long time to realize just long her hand had been against the glass before he finally moved through the door. "Ambre."

She didn't move...didn't even acknowledge that he had stepped into the room...that she had heard him call her name. Dean almost stopped...as much as he knew she needed to know what he was about to tell her he felt like he was being stabbed in the heart every time he looked into her eyes and she looked back without any inkling of her feelings for him there. In fact the pain he saw in her eyes was for another man that she had already mourned...and now she was doing it all over again.

"Ambre." He finally reached her and tenderly placed a hand on her shoulder. She still didn't respond. Dean took in a soft breath and slowly folded his hand over hers against the window pulling it away and holding it in his own. He brought it up closer to his lips and breathed softly over her skin while massaging his fingers over the frozen fingers until he felt the warmth return. She finally drew her attention from the window to Dean and he saw the dried tears against her cheeks.  
Dean looked to the floor a moment having a hard time seeing her like this and not just wrapping his arms around her. He wanted to...he really did. But she didn't even know him from Adam. "We need to talk...I don't think we every formally did this since you...since...I'm Dean Winchester." He registered the relief in her eyes a moment but saw her gaze shift to the window momentarily so he went on talking trying to draw her back to him. "I met you six months ago...We've had some rough times since then...a lot of travel...a lot of fighting...and a lot of pain...I'm kinda glad you don't remember some of it."

Dean paused having to reign in his own emotions to continue. He had her attention again though. "Shay's death was really hard the first time around and I know it's got to be just as difficult now especially with everything that has happened in the last few hours...but there are some things we need to talk about."

He wanted a reaction...something more then just a stare that showed that he had her interest peaked. He needed her to talk to him too...God he wanted to put his arms around her... "Ambre, six months ago...a man named Vanashi took it upon himself to put the powers and personalities of three ancient gods inside you, me and my brother Sam. His enemy a creature named Alturoc began to hunt us shortly after. He was trying to kill you the night that Shay died...he was trying to kill us all. We found you by chance...fate...whatever you want to call it. Since then we've learned that we had abilities...the powers granted to us by the gods inside us. Sam can do all kinds of things with his mind...he can move things...has premonitions...can read minds...I can heal and bring the dead back to life...and up til about 24 hours ago you could set near anything on fire or blow a hole in the world. I know this is a lot..." Dean trailed off not knowing if he should go on as she seemed to be so distant even in listening.

"We just entered another ice age Dean...in seconds...I think I can follow." She finally said with a half smile that betrayed as much pain as it did longing to know the truth. Dean returned the uneasy smile as he steered her to the edge of the bed. They both sat down looking to the floor as he went on. 

"The god inside you was trying to take over...She wanted to kill the god inside my brother...I guess they can be as juvenile as humans." Dean continued. " I shot you before you could shoot Sam on that subway car. When the god's spirit left you...I brought you back to life. When you came back...you're memory from the moment that she entered you was gone. I didn't have time to explain because we were kind of in one of those fight for our lives kinda situations."

"So we've all been together for the last six months." Ambre broke in looking to Dean.

He was quiet a moment but finally nodded and looked back to her. "We've all been together for the last six months...you, me, and Sam. There's something else though." Dean took a long drawn out breath before he could continue. "You and I...we...it was three months ago. We'd been through alot...you couldn't sleep...kept having these nightmares...we started sleeping together. I think it was mostly just to feel another person there. To help us survive. But one night...we moved past that..." Dean brought his hand to face trying to keep it together. "A few days ago you found out that you were pregnant."  
Ambre met his eyes startled.

"The baby's mine and yours." Dean went on making sure that she completely understood.  
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Steffs paced back and forth with her finger nails in her mouth as she looked to the double doors of the hotel lobby nervously. "You guys think they made it?" She asked the group sprawled in the bright red lounge chairs of the lobby.

In the last three hours the Paradise Hills hotel, a rather nice if not luxury hotel, had become a shelter for all that survived the first wave of ice. The patrons of the bar were all here as well having made their way over during the first reprieve to the storm. Now though it was back to whiteout conditions outside and Steffs was worried about Robin and Gabriel. The power and phone lines were down, there was absolutely no cell reception, and so she knew even if they had made it that they wouldn't be able to contact them.

Still Robin knew how to find them...if they were still alive.

"I'm sure they're fine." Nessa held her hand over her closed eyes as she massaged her temples. She looked to Sam who had fallen asleep in his own lounge completely exhausted from his energy expenditure that had saved them all at the bar earlier. She frowned at the pallor to his skin worried about the effect that the drain on the weave had had on Sam and Dean. Guardians bounced back quick enough, but gods depended a little bit more on that precious life force. "Steffs, Why don't you go to the roof and see if you can see them." Nessa suddenly thought up as she thought that if Gabriel and Robin had taken to the air that they may visible from up high.

"I'll freeze." Steffs frowned...she thought about it a minute though and quickly grabbed the blanket that Nessa had been wrapped up in from her. "But I'll make due...thanks for the suggestion."

Nessa glared daggers through Steffs back as she left with a skip and a hop and wrapped the blanket around her on the way. She finally chuckled as Steffs disappeared into the stair well and looked to John.

"It's been a while." Nessa smiled at him.

"Yes it has." John had been lost in thought wishing that he had the chance to talk to Dean and Sam but understanding the limitations at the moment as so many things needed to be said or done...and now he looked to Nessa with a heart felt smile.

"I wondered what happened to you." John nodded. 

"I wondered about you too." Nessa said a nervousness entering her voice that she wasn't quite used to. "I know things were a lot different in hell...but I missed you." 

Chapter Two

"Bright Light city gonna set my soul...gonna set my soul on fire..." Sam rubbed his eyes and took in a blur of lights as he heard the wheels rolling under the car from the open space above his head signifying he was in a convertible. "Got a whole lot of money that's ready to burn...so get those stakes up higher..."

Sam suddenly gasped as he took in the myriad of lights from the towering casinos as his focus slammed into crystal clear clarity. "...Viva Las Vegas..." The song on the radio caused Sam to furrow his eye brows in confusion as he looked over expecting to find Dean and wondering why in the world they were listening to "Viva Las Vegas"...Sam froze when he saw the person behind the wheel, however.

Sam closed his eyes and let his head sink forward as he rubbed at his eyes and then slowly looked back up. "Alright this takes the cake." Sam muttered under his breath. Elvis smiled as he tapped along to the music on the steering wheel. Elvis smiled brightly to see Sam awake.

"Well lookey here, I thought you'd sleep forever. Nice to have you back with us..." he paused his voice lowering to a whisper as he motioned to the back seat of the convertible. "Your buddy was beginning to drive me crazy."

Sam looked back at Elvis and blinked before he slowly turned in the seat to take in Daniseyal sitting in the back of the convertible his arms folded over his chest. "Sam." Daniseyal reguarded him with a nod.

"Daniseyal." Sam responded still trying to take in the fact that Elvis seemed to be driving through the heart of Las Vegas at the moment. "How you doing?" Sam hadn't heard from his inner god since Inan had been destroyed by Dean...the betrayal still burned deep inside him. How his wife could sleep with his brother then try to kill him.

"Inan is still alive." Daniseyal replied getting right down to business though Sam felt the hatred in his voice as he spoke.

"I thought Dean sent her to hell." Sam whispered. He gave his body a half twist and propped his elbow on the head rest so that he could look back at Daniseyal more comfortably. He still felt worn out from saving the people in the bar.

"Exactly." Daniseyal. "Imagine the damage she could do with those resources. I need you to understand what's to come, before I go on."

Sam just watched him as Elvis began to sing along with the song that seemed to be on a continuous loop on the radio. Suddenly in the blink of an eye Daniseyal's hand rested on Sam's arm.  
There was a flash of light that ripped through Sam's skull as his vision flashed to white then black then some funky grey scale that opened on some scene in what looked like a dark stone basement. The rustle of chains filtered into his hearing echoing in and out of focus as a low moan began and the sound of a thin trickle of water over ran everything else. Sam looked through the shadows of the dim lit basement.  
He found the beginning of the chains where they were anchored into the ceiling and followed the obstacles down the figure that pulled herself up against the manacles holding her in place. She seemed to near falter as Sam took in the blood pulling at her feet and then took in the red robed goddess standing before her. "Ambre." Sam whispered his eyes going back to the woman in chains water cascading over her broken body from a leak in the ceiling. The water though was coming off her body in a steam...sizzling as it touched her skin...her bare whipped back where bloody streaks marred the flesh. 

Suddenly the red robed woman placed her hand on Ambre's mid section and Sam flinched as he heard the scream that it illicited from Ambre. There was another sudden flash and Sam had to grab a nearby post to keep from fallen under the weight of the vision.

He stood in a darkened room looking at a body sprawled on the floor. The body gave a groan as Sam watched his brother roll over...Dean looked up at the ceiling with glassed over eyes his body shuddering. "Dean..." Sam breathed in a pant trying to will himself over to his fallen brother as he watched him draw in his last breath...

_Flash..._

Sam grabbed his head as the pain shot through his skull. John, Nessa, Steffs, Robin, and Gabriel were in the front line of a battle of epic proportions against an army of chain devils, black winged devils, and shades on the bloodied battlefield that was shrouded in the lights of the golden casinos of Las Vegas.

Sam came from the vision out of breath as Daniseyal only squeezed his arm tighter. "When we began the gods war...we thought we were fighting for what we loved...but in the end we only destroyed it all...and the irony is...that what we loved...never loved us back..." Daniseyal was speaking of Inan and Malachi and his voice and touch were now sending a wave of nausea through Sam. "I will not let that happen again...that bitch isn't about to take her victory."

Sam fought the streaks of blackness running in streams through his vision as he fought to draw in a wheezing breath against Daniseyal's touch. "Your body was never meant for this much power, I've spent the last six months trying to condition you for this moment...but I needed a year or more to make sure it went smoothly...unfortunately times run out...this may very well kill you, but if it doesn't then at least we have a fighting chance."

"What are you doing to me?" Sam rasped out as his eyes near rolled into the back of his head.  
"When Vanashi released us he bound us to your forms until that form should pass...I can't leave you...so I've decided to do just the opposite. There won't be a you and me anymore...I'll quit holding the full force of my powers back and give you access to all of it...and if the initial shock to your system doesn't kill you then you'll be able to rival Inan. You'll still be in control of your mind...but I must warn you...this is going to hurt like hell...use what I sacrifice wisely. Kill my wife or she will destroy everything you love."

Daniseyal wasn't giving him a choice. Daniseyal's suddenly moved in the blink of an eye to Sam's forehead.  
Sam slid back against the seat screaming. 

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

Steffs peered through the snow as the latest storm seemed to have eased up a bit and saw two shapes silhouetted against the white blanket coming down around them. She smiled hoping that the dark figures on the horizon were Robin and Gabriel.

The two dark flying figures circled the hotel as they made their approach and she smiled brighter as she wrapped Nessa's blanket tighter around her figure. She was glad they were alright. She didn't know what she would do without Robin...with out Gabriel. They made this life something easier to handle...like Nessa and her addiction to Alcohol...Steffs friends were her anchor instead her reprieve from the hostile world around her and Robin...Robin was like her sister.

Gabriel was something different...never a brother...more like an over protective cousin who just happened to love Robin more then Steffs thought her sister in heart would ever understand. Steffs wondered when the two of them would ever admit how they felt.

She started to feel a bit anxious as to why the two hadn't landed as she noticed another shape following behind them...then another...and another...and another...waves of shadowed figures began to descend from the snow storm swirling around them and Steffs began to cautiously back away toward the roof top door. One of them finally got close enough for the subtle details of his near featureless face to enter her field of vision and she gasped looking back to the sheer numbers of them...

Steffs flung open the roof door and jumped the rail plummeting don the open space of the stairwell using her wings to keep her fall to a descent that wouldn't break her legs as she forced herself to breath past the shock. So many people were about to die.

OOOOOOOOOOO

"I'm..." Ambre didn't know what to say.

"I was just getting used to the idea myself." Dean nodded. "Didn't expect that I'd be telling you."  
"So we're..." Ambre was having enough trouble just trying to get used to the way her world now was...and a relationship...with a man she didn't even know while she had just found out that her boyfriend...the man she thought she wanted to spend the rest of her life with was dead...Ambre rose to her feet shakily and paced a few times before him.

"We are...were...but Ambre I know your confused, that you don't know me...I just thought you needed to know. That you had a right to know. And I'm here... if you need to talk...anything...I'm here." Dean swallowed the lump in his throat. This was harder then he thought.  
Ambre walked back to the window and took hold of the drapes flipping the fabric nervously between her fingers as she tried to take in everything that he had just said...it was insane...as insane as the instant winter before her...She felt like she was losing her mind... this had to be a dream...some hellish nightmare...

"A dream." She heard herself whisper in her mind...in some far off haze... "A dream." She felt the pinch on her arm and looked down only to look back up into the familiar surrounding of her bedroom. It sounded like thunder outside. She looked out the window then heard the crash of the door breaking in below...it started coming faster like some DVD on triple speed.

The whole of the break in...of Shay's death flooded her senses followed by her stumbling into the street...

_Suddenly a woman was stumbling out into the street. Dean slammed on the breaks as his smile abruptly melted from his face. He was going to hit her. God, he was going to hit her. He swerved to the left and the car skidded sideways coming to a stop mere inches from her battered and bloodied form with the passenger door directly facing her._

Sam looked up in shock between Dean and the woman outside his window. Suddenly they all heard the commotion from behind her and saw the look of fear that came over her as several men seemed to be running straight for her. Sam got the door open fast with a quick "Get in."  
Dean had them moving again before the door was even closed. She collapsed in the back seat with a hysterical sort of shock induced sob.

Ambre felt her legs buckling under her from the weight of the memories flooding back... as she tried to halt the process, but the flood gates seemed to be open wide and the current wouldn't stop...

Dean rose to his feet in worry as she suddenly began to sink to the floor. 

_Dean squeezed her hand and looked back to the hallway thinking of Sam. They had gotten caught in the middle it seemed. Dean felt her fingers flinch under his hold. He looked back down quickly and watched as her back arched off the bed. Dean was about to let go - to call out for help. But he suddenly felt his own body arch where he stood and what felt like electricity passing between them.  
He couldn't do anything but stand there clenching her tiny hand in his as he watched in awe as the deep shades of blue and red began to recede across the shadows of her face. The cuts and abrasions closed. She settled back against the bed and looked up at him in shock and horror as he was finally able to release her hand and stumble backwards speechless. "What did you do?" She gasped much more coherently._

Ambre felt the memories begin to wane in a rush as Dean caught her before she could hit the floor. She looked back up at him trying to catch her breath as he scooped her up in his arms and started toward the bed and it started again...

_"Don't get jealous." Dean smiled down at him. "Just because I have an ability now too."  
Sam scoffed at him. "I'm not jealous."_

"Come on...you can admit it." Dean's smile was getting on his last nerve now as Sam swung his legs over the side of the bed. "And you're welcome."

"Oh yeah...thanks. I'm not jealous though." Sam insisted.

"Are too." 

"Guys." Ambre's voice held a hint of annoyance as she rubbed two fingers over the edge of the curtain trying to keep the noise down. She was still so confused and the jesting that bordered on a fight was grating. She let out a long sigh of frustration and suddenly saw a bright flash of light as the curtain exploded in flames under her hand.

"Holy Shit!" She screamed out as she jumped back and shook her hand trying to get it to go out. She realized all at once that it didn't burn and held her flaming hand up as her mouth fell open. Dean and Sam looked over in awe as Sam quickly jumped from the bed and grabbed the water bottle from his bedside table to douse the curtain.

"You're on fire." Dean whispered.

It was coming so fast now that she couldn't have said anything if she had tried.

Dean smoothed her hair from her face worriedly as he watched her eyes roll back into her head and her lashes fluttered at an insane pace. "Ambre...Ambre..." His voice rose in a panic as she didn't respond. His heart cinched in his chest and he looked around frantically not sure of what he could do. "Come on snap out of it!" Whatever was happening it couldn't be healed as he was trying desperately and nothing was happening.

Suddenly Dean dropped her to the bed as her hands burst into flames and the heat burned into his arms. He gave a scream as he looked down in confusion...Inan wasn't inside her any more...she didn't' have a power...where did the...her body went up next and the bed was quickly catching on fire...  
"Son of a ..." Dean ran out the door and looked for a fire extinguisher...

_"He's alive." She half laughed half cried as she felt a strong pulse from Dean. He was breathing evenly and seemed to have just exhausted whatever it was fueling his abilities. Before Sam could comment on that though Ambre threw her arms around him in a bear hug. "You're alive!"_

"Yeah." Sam said in confusion wrapping his arms around her to return the hug. 

"What's wrong with cowboy?" Nessa slid to a stop in the doorway of the room winded as she unfurled her wings fearfully. "Oh glad your feeling better." She nodded to Sam who only narrowed his eyes even more confused.

"Thanks..." Sam began just as Ambre called out to Nessa in a rush. " Dean brought Sam back from the dead...I think he's just exhausted. The magus tried to heal him...but it killed him."

Dean grabbed slammed his elbow through the nearest safety glass incased fire box on the wall and felt the cuts instantly began to heal as he ripped the extinguisher from the recess and ran back to the room in a rush.

_"Come on!" She screamed at Ambre as Sam put his other hand in the air seemingly drawing on a well store of power to hold the devils at bay, yet finding himself hard pressed to make this ability withstand the tests of strength and time. Ambre started in that direction as three of the chains whipped past Sam's defenses._

The fleshing ripping barbs wrapped around Ambre's middle and sank deep into her abdomen as she was wrenched backward and the whole of her body slammed into Sam's psychic barrier. Nessa jumped to her feet looking from the whole where she had just tossed Dean to the fight now becoming a problem at her back.

"No!" Sam screamed as Ambre seemed near sliced in half by the force of the impact. Blood trickled from her mouth as the flames licked at her hands and she looked to her chest where she had secured the grenades.

"Go." Ambre whispered suddenly as if somewhere in her mind she had made a decision.

Nessa's eyes widened when she saw the flames so close to the grenades. "Ambre!" She screamed in horror as Sam's barrier weakened even more and Ambre's body disappeared into the tangle of chains behind her. Nessa didn't give Sam a chance to react as she grabbed him by the shoulders and threw him down the hole behind Dean. She looked back once knowing that the whole place was going to come down on top of them if those grenades went up.

Nessa swallowed the knot in her throat as she looked up into the tangled mass of bodies and chains and saw a fireball go up as Ambre's whole body burst into flames. Nessa cursed and jumped down the hole behind Sam.  
Dean didn't hesitate...he didn't know where she was drawing her power from...what scared him was that it might be the baby...and well they couldn't really have the hotel going up in flames while he tried to figure it out. Dean cocked his head to the side wearily before beginning to spray Ambre and the bed down with the extinguisher...

_Dean was already pulling his soaked shirt over his head as he knelt down beside her. "See if you can find something to cover her... that isn't soaked." He whispered to Sam and Nessa looking up with angry tears in his eyes. He wasn't mad at Nessa or Sam or even Ambre just that this had happened at all. They weren't the gods that everyone seemed to want...they were human and everyone had their breaking point._

Sam turned with Nessa and began to scour the grounds for anything that they could use as Dean gently cleaned the blood from Ambre's face. "Ambre?" He asked when she gave him little more response then to draw her legs up further. "Ambre?" he caught her chin and turned her eyes up to meet his.  
There was a glimmer of recognition a spark of hope in her eyes. "This is a dream...isn't it?" Her face seemed to crumple as she finally whispered the words out. Dean felt his heart squeezed as he watched her. He wished it was...he didn't know how she survived...but for all their sake he wished it was just some nightmare that they could all just wake from.

"No." He shook his head. The news seemed to sink in with a sob and Dean looked up just as Sam walked back with a torn blanket that he was shaking out. Sam stepped forward and wrapped it around her shoulders. Dean nodded his thanks.

Ambre felt a coolness settled back over her as the memories just kept flooding her senses like a damn had burst wide.

_She spotted Dean's form sprawled on his stomach under the covers and remembered that Sam had gone out to get some food a bit ago. Ambre made her way over as she had a hundred times before over the last few months...just like the night Nessa died. "Dean." Ambre's voice was barely over a whisper, but he stirred.  
Dean rolled over and looked up at her tiredly. Without another word he smiled up at her and held back the covers for her to climb into the bed. She smiled back as she wiped the tears from her face and climbed into the bed scooting all the way over until she could feel his body against hers.  
He draped his arm over her and seemed to settle back in._

Ambre wasn't sure why, but tonight was different. It was if she couldn't get close enough to make the dream fade away. It was as if it hadn't really ended this time. She rolled over to face him and Dean repositioned himself as if to ask what was wrong as he lifted his arm for her to move. As his arm settled back over her though Ambre pulled herself closer to him wrapping her arms around him. That was a first. Because Ambre had always let him hold her. To help her pass into sleep without fear of the monsters that waited for her there.  
Ambre never used to be this way. She had lived a life full of stress in line of work, a trauma nurse. She had never wanted to let someone else hold up what was left of her. She even felt guilty for letting his arms surround her now. The guilt had come every night since this pattern began. The comfort though made up for the guilt. She felt the sob shudder through her as if she betrayed every weakness in that one moment. It was weakness that made her hate herself at times, like this one moment. But she was caught up in the warm arms of relief. As if the humanity of one person could save her from herself, from the woman she was becoming, from the power that grew inside her. Ambre took in a breath against his hair and buried her face against his neck as her form trembled against his.

She slowly wrapped her arms around his waist and pulled him closer as if the hunger for the comfort she so desperately needed was more then she ever imagined. The feelings from before reminded her of who she was and that there was something in his eyes that seemed to connect with what was left of her falling spirit as she pulled back slightly unable to control her need for him. For this. For some form of human contact that told her that life was worth living. That she was alive. Her hands roamed upward and soon cupped his neck, his chin, his cheeks so tightly as she brought her lips to his. It was like ravenous hunger that set this in motion and she couldn't stop it now if she wanted to. There was no reason or rhyme to it, just need.  
Dean watched the flames go out in a wave of relief as he made his way over to her to see if she was alright. He had just leaned over her his eyes alight with panic and worry as her eyes suddenly opened in perfect focus. They met each others wide eyes and remained transfixed there a moment before Ambre finally spoke... "I remember." She breathed. 

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

"You remember that pit fiend that we ran into right after I broke you out the demons lair?" Nessa asked with a laugh.

John smiled brighter with a chuckle of his own. "How could I forget...those were some pretty fancy moves..."

"You weren't so bad yourself." Nessa said softly.

Sam gave a shudder as he turned uncomfortably and John and Nessa both shifted their attention to him as he turned his head from side to side and the gleam of perspiration began to roll down his face. Nessa and John were both on their feet in an instant with John making it to his son first.

"God, He's burning up." John breathed just as Steffs came barreling through the stair well door out of breath and panicked.

"Some things about to go down." She called to Nessa frantically as she shoulder the blanket off her and threw it at Nessa. "There are hundreds of reapers circling the city." 

Chapter Three 

" I remember." Ambre breathed again.

It took precious seconds for the words to hit Dean full force as he searched her eyes and found that familiar longing that was shrouded in guilt. As the shock wore down the relief and followed and Dean pulled her into his arms. Ambre didn't waste time as she wrapped her arms around his shoulders and pulled him the rest of the way to her, the two meeting somewhere in the middle of solace and desperation.

They seemed to hold each other for an eternity lost in the comfort that sleep deprivation, battle, and everything in between had taken from them. When they finally pulled back both had tears streaming and in unity hands roamed to each others faces to simultaneously wipe the tears. The act of unison brought a relieved smile to Dean and Ambre both again at once as Dean finally found his voice just after a tear laced chuckle. "I was going to tell you before on the subway..."

"I know..." Ambre's face crumpled again as she drew into his chest and his hand wound into her hair holding her close there as his hand slowly ran down the length of her hair over and over and he closed his eyes thanking whoever had listened for the miracle before him. His lips met her forehead before he went on. 

"No you don't..." he pulled back so he could meet her eyes. " I was going to tell you that no matter what happens I love you...and I'm here and will be...no matter what."

Ambre smiled softly without looking away. "I never doubted that...and I love you too."

They met up again in a wave of passion as their lips tenderly met for the first time in weeks. When Ambre finally broke the hold and pulled back she brushed the soot that she had gotten on him from her slow burn a moment ago off of his forehead. "Dean." She started swallowing the knot in her throat before continuing on.

"Yeah." he replied quietly. 

"You're on my foot." She breathed causing them both to laugh out as Dean apologized and shifted. "And I'm starving." 

Dean took her hand in his and pulled her to her feet leading her toward the door so they could go downstairs to the kitchen. "That I think we can do something about...but we need to talk about this fire thing..."

"Yeah." She breathed nervously. "I don't know much about it...it just happened."

"You know for once I'd give anything to have a straight answer...have everything spelled out...written on the wall...just in plain site..."

"Me too..." Ambre nodded.   
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Nessa looked to Steffs then to the front door of the lobby. "Shit." She looked back to Steffs as she began to move to the front door. "Steffs I need to you look after Sam..." Nessa met John's eyes before she took her step out the front door trying to see what it was they were dealing with. The reapers were neutral in this...they were just here as precursor to whatever else was on the way. So no matter what they knew that many would be dying and that was less comforting then just seeing them meant that something horrible was about to occur.

Nessa heard it before she saw it. It sounded like 15 marching bands percussion sections moving in tandem down the streets. It was loud...louder then the distant hum of the helicopter. Nessa took one jump and flew straight up trying to break through the storm to see the helicopter and just who was in it. She felt her breath as she met the layer of reapers that Steffs had spoken about and waded through the bodies to break free of the clouds. From high above she pin pointed the helicopter's location and flew back into the clouds in that direction.

Why couldn't they catch a break. None of them had slept in days. They were exhausted and half starved and this was not the best time to have yet another fight. John hadn't even had a chance to talk to his sons...and Sam...Nessa knew they needed him on this. Dean was all caught up in Ambre and her crazy memory loss and Nessa felt like she was scraping the bottom of her reserves as she felt the wind began to shift from the blades of the helicopter. She hovered a moment as it came into focus a few feet away and she suddenly smiled as she got a good luck at the occupants.

Gabriel saluted her from the pilots seat as he steered the helicopter toward the nearby hotel roof top. Robin waved from the co - pilots seat and smiled giving her a thumbs up. Nessa returned the salute to the both of them before she flew back down landing hard before the lobby doors as the percussion section sound gave way to the view of what lay ahead. Nessa let out a breath of frustration. "Not again." She whispered as the army of chain devils came into view.

Nessa shoved her way in through the front door and didn't waste time with the explanations. The last time they had a run in with these creatures they had all nearly died and she wasn't about to pit this broken group against them again. "Get to the roof!" She screamed at Steffs. "You get Sam up there now! John we have to get Dean and Ambre !"

John looked to Sam remiss to give him over to the guardian but knowing that Dean needed him too as he looked to Nessa and finally nodded. "Take good care of him...and be careful." John warned Steffs who smiled in reply.

"Wrap him up good." Nessa added. "He's already got a fever."

"I'll take care of him." Steffs spoke up defensively. "Go get Dean and Ambre."

John and Nessa took off at a run for the stairs as Steffs walked over to check on Sam.  
He looked bad. Sam was still groaning as he shifted in what was clearly a pain laced sleep. Steffs paused as she heard him cough hard and long against the back of the chair and she knelt down beside him. "Sam?" She whispered smoothing the hair from his face.

He stirred a bit and half opened his eyes. "Steffs." he rasped out the color draining further from his face. "What's wrong?"

"We've got to get out of here." She said softly. "Can you walk?"

Sam shifted his arms to help lift his body. "Sure." he breathed. The dream had long since been forgotten in the haze of his fever. He knew there was some thing important waiting to surface from the dream, but it was just out of reach. "God I feel like I'm going to be sick." he said as he pulled his body up then nearly fell back against the chair before he leaned further forward to shift his weight.

"Well lets try not to do that anytime soon." Steffs said as she wrapped her arm under his and pulled him the rest of the way up. "Time to go. We've got to get to the roof."

"Where is everyone else?" Sam asked in concern as he nodded leaning heavily on the guardian. 

"Your father and Nessa just went upstairs to get Dean and Ambre." Steffs replied quickly. "They're meeting us there." 

"Hey!" Steffs turned the both of them to face the group from the bar walking out of the kitchen.

"Where are you guys going?" The bartender, Elise was holding her sleeping son in her arms and Steffs felt her heart cinch that they had only been thinking about their charges.

Steffs took a deep breath as the seven bikers and the old man walked up behind her...the rather normal group looking as if they had bonded on their own. "We're going to the roof...come on." She hoped like hell that Nessa had an ace up her sleeve as she didn't know exactly what waited for them up there...but they couldn't just leave these people here to die either. Humanity was in precious short supply at the moment with the death count from the initial freeze having been estimated to have killed over 70 percent of the population. Steffs had done the math herself. It was contingent on a few factors, but one thing was certain...the death tole was high. Even if all her safe guards were taken out over half the population would have died. "Hurry." She called over her shoulder as she turned Sam and herself back in the right direction.

"Can you do this ?" Steffs asked Sam as they paused once more before the steps.

Sam's head sank low to his chest as he struggled to draw in a breath. "No." he finally admitted to her and himself. Normally his confidence wouldn't let him admit it. Not like this...but he couldn't barely pick his feet up to walk let alone climb stairs.  
"Alright." Steffs repositioned her hold on him and positioned them in the center of the stair well so that she could fly up the middle. "Hold on, Sam." Sam wrapped his arms around her as she lifted from the floor and flew the both of them to the roof top. She didn't care about the gapping mouths of awe from the bar patrons that followed running up the stairs as they tried to catch up with them.

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

John couldn't believe this. They had told him that his kids had been imbued with enough power to protect themselves better, to be near invincible, the guardians, at hell's gates. It was where his search had begun and where he and Nessa had parted. They had led him to Huntington initially and since then everything he had heard especially in the last few hours was as far from invincible as it could get. Sam looked horrible and Dean...Dean was so withdrawn from his brother and his father over the events and this new girl that John was really worried about him as well.

"So what's on the roof?" John asked on the way trying to focus on the task at hand instead of the conversations that were yet to come.

Nessa would have smiled if she could have shaken the picture of the chain devils inbound for the hotel and the reapers circling above like vultures waiting to pick off the souls that were devoured in the fray. "A CH-47 Chinook Helicopter." Nessa called out. "And Robin and Gabriel, two other guardians."

"Good we can get everyone in that." John nodded as they finally turned down the right hallway on the second floor and near ran into Dean and Ambre. "The transport capacity is what...30?"

"33...give or take plus the crew...It really depends on what Gabriel and Robin loaded on the thing...she's worse then me about coming prepared. I bet there is a boat load of weapons on that thing."

"Uh what's going on?" Dean paused at the continued conversation that was going on between his Dad and Nessa.

"Chain devils...a whole heaping bunch of then headed straight for the hotel." Nessa replied without missing a beat. "We need to get to the roof."

Dean wrapped his arm tighter around Ambre as Nessa turned and began back toward the stairwell. She didn't need to give them more time for question and answers at the moment.

"Are you kidding me?" Dean asked in disbelief. This was it...it was like the last straw...after everything they had been through...now another fight...another war...

"Not in the least." Nessa replied still moving.

"God, I'm tired of running." Dean let out a frustrated breath as Ambre pulled him after Nessa and John. 

"You're like your father you know." Nessa smiled back at him then looked to John a moment near betraying her feelings further then respect. "But if you want to live to go on the offensive then tonight we run."

Dean didn't miss the look that his father returned to Nessa. "Hey uh did you two...?"

"What?" John asked him as if daring him to follow up on that question.

Dean smirked. "Nothing." he chuckled then resumed the following. "So what's on the roof?"

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

Gabriel landed on the roof and quickly began to unstrap as he handed the controls over to Robin. "I'll be right back." he said quickly giving her still tender mid section a look of concern. He could see the blood slowly seeping through the shirt. It should have healed by now...the drain on the weave though had effected them all including Robin's regeneration...it seemed to be taking an eternity to heal and he was more then a little concerned.

Gabriel jumped from the front seat and went to get the back opened up so they could load everyone in as quickly as possible. He had just gotten the door open when Steffs kicked the roof door open and near dragged Sam out of the stairwell. Gabriel cursed under his breath as he saw the man's condition. He quickly broke into the cold weather stash and began to get out blankets.

Steffs smiled when she saw Gabriel and Robin and it spurred her to move faster. She was to the Helicopter and being handed a whole slue of blankest by the time the bar patrons burst through the door all winded from the run up the stairs. "Get him in and wrapped up. " Gabriel sighed seeing that Sam wasn't really awake. His eyes had long since closed as he had succumbed to the unconsciousness.

As Steffs got Sam settled and as comfortable as possible Gabriel began to load everyone else onto the helicopter. He was helping the old man on when the rest of the group came through the roof top door and ran the rest of the way to the transport. "Good to see you guys!" Gabriel exclaimed. "Get your butts on here and hold on...and Dean...Sam needs some healing." Gabriel then quickly climbed back into the pilots seat and began to strap in.

"What? What's wrong with Sam?" Dean asked his voice fearful with worry as he climbed on board.

"I think it was the weave drain earlier and the use of his powers on top of it." Nessa explained as Dean began to hurriedly make his way toward the back. "He's sick... really sick." Nessa broke from the group to get settled up front near Robin and Gabriel as Dean, John, and Ambre went back to sit with Steffs and Sam.  
"When dis this happen?" Dean felt guilty that he had been upstairs talking to Ambre when he finally saw Sam shivering from under the blankets that Steffs was wrapping him in.

"While you were upstairs." John replied as he sank down next to his youngest son. "It happened fast."

Dean leaned down beside Sam and quickly ran his hand over his cheek as he felt the heat there. Sam was near burning up and so chilled that his body shook from the muscle contractions. "Sam?" Dean asked softly. Sam barely opened his eyes fighting against his own body to hold on to consciousness. Sam licked at his lips as if he wanted to talk to him, but couldn't seem to speak. "It's alright." Dean said softly. "I'm gonna get you all fixed up." He wrapped his other a hand around Sam's throat and suddenly felt the power flowing through him and into Sam. It seemed to be helping for just a few seconds and then all at once Dean felt something else flowing through him.

There was a dull whisper in his head. "As my brother shall sacrifice...so shall I." Malachi's voice faded from his head as the pain came and suddenly Dean was falling to the floor doubling over as the pain shot through him. John was the first to unbuckle and slide out of the seat to get to Dean.

"Dean!" John barely caught him as Ambre called out for Dean as well worried. "Hey...what's going on?"

"I don't feel so good, Dad." Dean whispered before his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he blacked out. 

Chapter Four  
Sam shifted uncomfortably as the vision washed over him feeling stronger then usual...

_He didn't know how he got here...trying to catch a breath that should have given him reason to hope that each one wouldn't be his last as he watched the lash marks that the whip left behind on the tender flesh before him. If he could have screamed, it would have torn through him with the force of an earthquake...if he could have forced a word out it would have been to curse the man that had done this to them all...if he could have killed..._

Hands were bound, chains hanging loose enough that his wrists were chest level...just high enough that he could pull his body up to have a better look...though he didn't want to see. Her screams had ceased...lost to her sagging body and the blackness that had taken her after the first twelve lashes. Still he could hear the whip...could see her body jerk from the impact and all he could do was fight to breath...fight...he would fight...this wasn't over...It couldn't be.

"Have you seen enough?" Inan's voice was like a pale whisper course with jagged rock against her throat. Her voice was nothing like Ambre's...the woman she was now punishing for her lovers betrayal.   
"Let her go." Dean forced the words out in a gasp of rage and pain.

Inan's lips pulled tight into some hideous smile even though her visage was flawlessly beautiful. She moved closer and Dean jumped against the chains hard enough to make her take a step back. "Ten more." She called over her shoulder to the large muscles demon doing her bidding for her.

Dean jumped against the chains his breath coming in waves of wheezing bursts. He wanted to just get his hands around her...just one touch If he could just tough the evil bitch he could kill her. "I swear to God I am going to send you some place you'll never come back from." Dean screamed at her and then had to pause nearing panic at his lack of breath...he fought to draw in another and then another until the panic at, at least his own mortality waned.

Inan turned at that her smile broadening as she stepped closer, yet still out of reach. "God? My dear boy I am God..." her smile faded slowly turning into a hard line of anger and determination. "And I'll be the only one left when were finished here...pity, you could have ruled with me...now I'm going to kill everyone you every loved and raise your baby as my slave and when she's old enough...I'm going to make her my new vessel."

Dean slammed against the restraints again his rage building to the point of losing control as he near choked on his fading heart beat. He couldn't even talk...the sickness having taken what the crash hadn't and the anger was only speeding this horridly drawn out process...

"Cut him down." Inan called to one of the servants there. "And be careful not to touch his skin. Let him die in the waste on the floor." She looked back to Dean as he was slipped to the cold stone floor and the blood that had run from Ambre's torture. " I hope you live long enough to see her die, Dean. It's going to be beautiful. Tell Malachi I said stay out of hell...there isn't enough room for the both of us."  
Sam jumped awake screaming Dean's name at least in his head...the scream never actually made it out of his throat. God it was like he had been inside his body, his head...felt everything...and the only thought he could force was that he would have to do everything in his power to prevent Dean from ever living that nightmare...Sam's body shuddered under the chill in the air as the roar from the motors front and aft rattled through him. Taking in the frightened people who had sought refuge with them now in quiet contemplation speaking words of comfort to each other every now and then when they could. 

Nessa was near the front talking to Gabriel and Robin and Dean was laying at his side. Shivering under the blanket that had been tucked around him. Ambre was sitting beside Dean rummaging through a medical kit. John was sitting between Dean and Sam looking away at the moment as he tried to see if Ambre was finding what she was looking for.

Sam went back through the nightmare/vision and found the part that had rung in an echo through him even as he woke..._crash_...It had been a strong thought in Dean's mind. "Dad?" Sam's voice was barely above a whisper, but John looked back to him in an instant.

"Sam?" John's hands flew in a flurry of motion combing over Sam's face as he tried to see if he was still running a fever.

"Dad, What's wrong with Dean?" Sam gasped out his face contorting in pain as he felt his muscle shuddering from the chill that ran through him. He could still see Dean in the vision and the thought of it twisted a knot inside his stomach. "Oh God." Sam had to roll to the side and was barely able to make his body comply before the nausea overwhelmed him. He felt his father's hand on his back as he dry heaved.

"It's alright..." John's voice betrayed the worry that said quite the contrary as he continued to rub Sam's back. "Dean's going to be fine, you both are. He's just a little under the weather right now." John finally replied when Sam shifted back onto his back and looked up apologetically.

Sam lulled his head to the side and took in the shuddering that Dean's body had taken to beneath the thick blankets as he noted the pallor to Ambre's face. Sam slowly shifted his gaze back to His father. "You're a bad liar." he whispered, knowing that in actuality John could lie when he needed to. He realized that in all the chaos of the last few hours he hadn't been able to talk to his father...to ask him how or why and now was hardly the time. Instead he said the first thing that he could think that he really wanted to tell the man. "I missed you, Dad." Sam forced a smile through the pain as he met his father's eyes and saw the tears there.

"I missed you too, Son."

Steffs walked through the cabin of the helicopter passed the four member sick team and the occupants of the bar so that she could get to Nessa who was standing with her hands holding her steady between the cockpit recess and the rest of the transport hold. "I need to talk to you." Steffs said quietly as the receiver in her hand squawked.  
Steffs looked down at the receiver with a swallow before Nessa broke through her conversation with Gabriel and Robin and looked back at the blonde with a quizzical gleam to her eyes. "What?" Nessa asked quietly as she looked over to Elise who was now trying to quiet her squealing son.

One of the bikers had come over and was making a fool of himself as he tried to help. It was almost a comical sight to see a man in that much leather playing at trying to get the little boy to smile. Almost but not in their current situation.

"Inside the cockpit." Steffs said carefully indicating that it wasn't just the bikers, bartender, or old man that she didn't want to hear this. She also was trying hard to keep the panic from the charges. Nessa moved on inside and took the rear seat as Steffs propped herself up on the wall of the cabin there. "I've been listening to the radio traffic."  
"And...we're not getting anything up here." Gabriel said over his shoulder. "Course this bird was in the hanger having some repairs done...so the radio may have been one of the problems...what have you got?"

"Foci command." Steffs replied evenly watching as the silence over took the group. "They've got live transmissions. Sounds like they are marching on Las Vegas. Or starting troop transport in that direction. I caught the station outside of a St. Louis a few minutes ago...but it's almost gone now...The Foci was killed in the bridge attack in Washington D. C. There's a new person in power. I think their reserves are pretty low right now but they just reunited the rebel faction to the command...so if your up for it we're now back in the fold." Steffs replied cooly. 

"What? How?" Gabriel didn't understand this. The rebel faction hadn't been considering reuniting with the Foci at all...not even when Alturoc started the war with the Foci.

"It's the new commander...seems Vanashi survived the plane explosion." Steffs voice dropped low as the silence took over once more. "He's assumed command of Foci command and he's marching every last guardian, magus, and everything else we've got straight into the heart of Las Vegas...so I can only guess that, that is where we'll find Alturoc."

"Something doesn't feel right about this." Robin finally whispered. "That plane he was on performing the ritual...it went up like a mushroom cloud. He had already prepared for his death...had passed on command...he knew he was going to die. I mean I know he was good...but he's not a that good."

"Well he's good enough to take command and get things moving." Steffs replied quickly. "They would know if it was something that wasn't him...pretending to be him...they're magus for Christ's sake."

"No...this isn't right..." Gabriel shook his head. "Vanashi is dead."

"Maybe not." Nessa finally piped in agreeing with Steffs. "Steffs is right. They are Magus. Their trained to know what's in their midst. I've seen amazing survival stories...somehow he may have made it..."

"He didn't make it." Gabriel's rose defensively.

"You can't be sure of that." Nessa matched his tone quickly as she fought for Steffs point of view.

"I can...I was the one manning the radio that night. I heard the screams before the explosion. He and the pilot were dead long before that plane exploded. The power from those vessels tore them apart." Gabriel replied fighting back the emotion in his voice as he tried to maintain his professionalism.  
"Gabriel, John and I came back from hell...and you cannot sneak something into the ranks of Foci Command...especially not that high up. There are safe guards...powerful safeguards." Nessa argued. "So whatever you heard...no matter how bad...Sounds like Vanashi's back."

"Since when would Vanashi march every last reserve we had in a one shot hit at the enemy." Robin finally spoke up.

"You're talking about the man that released three gods against all orders from the Foci himself." Nessa breathed. "He's a wiz at long shots."

"No." Gabriel shook his head. "Not like this." 

"It doesn't matter." Nessa finally breathed.

"Like hell it doesn't." Steffs whispered. "Our loyalties were to the rebel faction...and now our leader just united that with your command Nessa...we have to know who we're fighting with here...and where they need us to go."

"We're not fighting with anyone. We're keeping our charges alive...or have you forgotten your current assignment." Nessa spoke up defensively.

"I wasn't under assignment." Gabriel spoke up chancing a glance at her from over his shoulder. "I was helping you out... Robin and Steffs came in on my request...and I'm sure all of us are on that Las Vegas transport list. Including you, Nessa...this is war and their going to tell us to drop the charges and get our asses into the fray."

"These charges...no..." Nessa shook her head rising to her feet angrily. "No one wants us to drop them. Vanashi died or near died bringing them into the world in the first place and the Foci he gave every resource he had to keep them protected. And regardless of either of those things those three...well two... back there are our last hope."

"Last hope?" Gabriel scoffed. "Nessa have you even looked at them? They are dying back there! We have always stood in the gap. Us...the guardians. We've been on the front lines for millennia...don't you tell me that those humans...are going to save us...because from where I'm sitting...if that's all we got...we're screwed."  
"Since when did that matter...you were just arguing that Vanashi wouldn't even do what he's doing...your not even sure if Foci Command has been infiltrated or not." Nessa screamed back at him in frustration.

"You made a pretty good case." Gabriel glared back at her. "We drop the charges at the nearest hospital and let their own kind deal with them...then I'm reporting in."

"Like hell we are!" Nessa screamed at him. "They aren't human Gabriel or have you forgotten!"  
"Well they aren't going to last the night anyway...so we drop them and we fight our way...for our people." Gabriel met her gaze head on as Robin took control of the helicopter. "You can go with them. They are your charges." 

"Dammit Gabriel...you cannot do this." Nessa got out through clenched teeth.

"I think I just did." Gabriel replied evenly.

"Hey you two..." Steffs spoke up suddenly. She looked out the front windshield with a gasp as she braced for impact. "Hate to ruin your plans, but uh we are already screwed."

All eyes followed her gaze to the sea of black wings coming right for them. Nessa cursed under her breath and pushed off the cabin wall making a stumbling line for the back as fast as she could trying to get to her charges. "Everyone buckle up!" She screamed at the humans in between her and her charges as she heard Steffs screaming at Robin and Gabriel -"Just fly straight through them!"

Chapter Five

_"I missed you too, Son"_

"I messed up, Dad."

"Shhh." John shook his head wiping at the tears that had yet to get past his eyes.

Sam drudged right ahead though. "I did." He breathed. "I ...the last time we saw each other..."

"Sam, I'm here now." John reminded him. "And you and Dean are both going to get better...and we can make our own time...this will all be over...we'll have time...there is no need to go back there...to that place."

"I just..." Sam paused taking a moment to fight in a breath as his heart continuously skipped beats a few times. He near panicked until it all settled and he finally pushed the fear away refusing for this to be how his father remembered him should this be another last in a long list of lasts that no one wanted to come. "You're right." Those two words seemed to get a widened eye effect from John who wasn't used to hearing Sam ever admit that he was right about anything. It seemed like even when Sam knew he was right there was an argument.  
Dean let out a pain laced cough from beside them that near doubled him over, but his eyes didn't open even though John and Sam both looked over in time to see Ambre let out a whimper under her breath, holding her hand over her mouth as the tears slid down her cheeks.

Sam couldn't believe he hadn't picked up on it yet, but it was obvious from her posture that she remembered. Then again he'd had more important things to dwell on at the moment. "Ambre, when did you..."  
"I remembered in the room while we were talking about the baby." Ambre replied before he'd even finished.

"Baby?" John piped in instantly doing a double take as he had just looked back to Sam noticing the wheeze to this breath.

"Oh." Sam half smiled coughing as Dean had a moment ago to give him some pause. "You're going to be a Grandpa." He finally managed to get out. "Ambre and Dean." Sam nodded trying to clear up anything that had been left unclarified. The look on John's face was not one of mirth as he looked over the couple a little closer.

_"Everyone get buckled up!"_

Nessa's scream at their back gave John a moment of panic before he felt the helicopter tilt then heard numerous bodily thuds against the exterior before the back motor took a pounding as several some things went through the blades. There was a momentary stall to the rotor before he heard it spring back to life. 

John looked back in time to see a parachute being thrust into his face. "Get these on." Nessa tossed another one to Ambre. "John, tie Sam off to you, you can take him down. I'll grab Dean. Ambre get that on and when you get out the door and clear the plane you pull this cord...got it?"

"We're going to crash..." Sam whispered the moment lost as his vision ran back through his mind. Sam slowly looked back to Dean and Ambre. "No..."

"There are Black winged devils swamping the plane...so yeah that's a safe bet...but no one is dying today...you got me...I'm not letting that happen." Nessa quickly summed up for him.

"And your plan is what, Nessa?" John asked his voice mirroring the anger and frustration at this sudden turn of events.

"To make a jump...we're over Kansas at the moment. We make the drop, find cover, and a place to hold up til the boys get better...then we can decide where to go from there." Nessa explained quickly.

Sam doubled over coughing again as John fastened the chute around his chest and began to wind the rest of the harness into place. "Vision." Sam barely got out in the midst of the coughing fit. John and Nessa both looked to Sam in horror waiting to see if he could draw in enough breath to not only quit coughing but also now tell them what exactly his vision entailed. John gave up on fastening the rest of the chute as he patted Sam on the back trying to help him clear his lungs.

"Nessa, we need weapons." John breathed watching his son struggle to breath. "Ambre have you got anything in there to help open his airway?" John called out shaking Ambre out of her own panic laced preparations to jump from a moving air craft her eyes still fixed on Dean. Ambre quickly pulled out a prefilled wrapped syringe and tossed it to John.

"Epinephrine...goes in the thigh..." Ambre called out over the thuds now hitting the plane hard and fast and over and over again. Nessa walked back to the middle of the plane and returned with a hand full of cord and a enough guns for the three of them that could actually use them at the moment. She tossed a coil next to John as She quickly settled down next to Dean and pulled him backwards into her lap to begin to tie his body off to hers. "Ambre get that chute fastened." Nessa got out through clenched teeth.

John quickly un fastened Sam's pants and slid the waist band down so that he could get at his son's thigh then pulled the cap off with his teeth before jabbing the needle into his thigh. He dispensed the liquid and heard Sam's breathing instantly get better as he sucked in a wide eyed breath his attention and focus seeming to slam into a whole other level as the adrenaline hit his system. John rebuttoned Sam's pants as he finally finished buttoning his harness and then began to pull Sam into his own lap so that he could tie him off to him. "What was the vision, son?" John asked as Sam's head now rested against his chest.

"Inan is alive." Sam's eyes almost rolled back into his head as he said it. "She's in Las Vegas with Alturoc. She is pissed at Malachi and Dean and Ambre...and she is going to try to take the both of them. She wants the baby...so that she has a new vessel." Sam saw Ambre freeze out of the corner of his eye and wished that he could do anything to keep what he had seen in his head from happening.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Gabriel cursed again as he pulled upward trying to get as much pull from the motors as he could. The beasts just kept coming, wave after wave. The bodies hitting the sides and top and bouncing off the windshield and going through the motors weren't doing anything to ease his mind. 

Suddenly one of them landed on the windshield and Gabriel tried to dive right to shake the bastard off, but he had one hell of a grip. The devil reared back and slammed his fist into the windshield as another slammed into the other side opposite Robin and pulled an automatic rifle into view. "Dammit!" Gabriel ripped his seat belt off as did Robin before Gabriel grabbed her by the arm and shoved her through her cock pit door his body shielding hers and Steffs from the spray of bullets that cut through him and the cock pit...as the helicopter began it's dive. 

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Nessa had instructed the rest of their passengers in passing to get their own chutes on as she had grabbed the two that she brought to the back. They had all been out of their seats fumbling with the harnesses when the helicopter began it's dive. Instead of a straight dive though the whole of the body began to spin on it's way down. "We have to get out now or we're not going to have enough distance for these things to even work." Nessa screamed as she hoisted Dean's not so tied form up into her arms instead and made her move for the door.  
She stumbled through the helicopter's hold bashing into the walls as she moved from the angle and spin to the movement. It was making getting around hard. As she neared the front she saw Robin pulling Gabriel's bloodied form from the cockpit and preparing to fly out of the chopper with him. 

Nessa met her eyes briefly feeling a pang of remorse for how she had screamed at him a moment ago even though she knew she was right. She looked away quickly though before calling out the whole group. "It's time to go."

Nessa kicked the door open...and shoved the skiddish Ambre out first before she dove after her with Dean in her arms. 

Chapter Six - On the Way Down

Ambre braced her hand against the door jam of the chopper, the air pressure working to jerk her body out of the transport hold just as Nessa shoved her. Ambre managed to twist her body to get a good look at the guardian diving from the sea of massive black wings that covered the whole of the Ch-47 as she gasped in a breath against her stomach leaping upward.

John was next with Sam strapped to his chest. The two of them plummeted faster as Nessa unfurled her wings and drifted at a steadier pace holding Dean close to her body. Ambre saw Dean's body near fight against Nessa as even in his fevered state he realized that everything had just changed. Survival instincts were hard to escape.

Ambre had to fight to get her hand to the cord as she watched as person after person jumped and the seas of black against cold gray skies and frigid snow swirled around them in thick clouds and waves. She felt like she was drowning before she had even given a chance to swim. The sound of the wing beats alone was like the flutter of a dying heart. She only wished that Dean had woken long enough in the hours she had spent caring for him on the chopper for her to tell him what she had wanted to say before they had run into John and Nessa for yet another escape in a long list of narrow escapes.

She didn't need Sam's precognition to know that things were as bad as they could get...or at the very least swiftly approaching. Ambre pulled the cord and felt the strap snap off in her hand. She waited for the upward shift that would yank her out of the black wings heading straight for her as she leveled the gun that Nessa had given her in that general direction and opened fired. It wasn't until the first four went down under the barrage of gun fire that Ambre realized that her chute hadn't opened. "Shit." She breathed meeting Nessa's eyes on the way down.

Ambre looked to Dean resting in Nessa's arms and fought the tears as she suddenly saw a wave of gun fire sweep through Nessa's wings and the guardian arched backwards with a scream as Dean fell from her grasp.

John pulled his gun around Sam so that he could fire at the Black wing that had just shot Nessa and caused his oldest son to fall earthbound. He shot the guy with three precise shots that tore through it's own back as Steffs sailed past all of them her wings tucked in to her body so that she fell quickly in a dive and caught Dean.

Ambre watched her back to the ground as John pulled his cord and He and Sam were wrenched upward by the chute. Gun fire over head erupted in waves of bright flashes against the dark shapes that were coming for them. Ambre screamed as one of the black wings bodies hit her full on and she had to shove him off before a live one swooped in and managed to get it's claws into her shoulders. Ambre couldn't help but scream as his idea of catching her was to drive it's claws deep into her flesh.

She felt a moment of reprieve as John and Robin open fired and the devil fell off her. The moment was short lived though as another took it's place. Ambre had never fired over her shoulder but she'd be damned if this guys was going to get her. She jammed her arm upward and let the weight of the weapon help pull it into it's intended position as she pulled the trigger and felt the body let her go again as something splashed against her back. No sooner had she done it against her ripped shoulders protests then she screamed at the impact of a bullet to her right arm and her own gun fell from her hand just as two more black wings swooped in. She kicked out trying to focus on the training that Dean and Sam had taught her, but then again the conditions they had trained her in didn't involved mid air fights with devils...She felt the first jolt to her jaw and swung her head back around with a scream as her foot caught the bastard in the chest and she threw him backwards off her.

Claws ripped into her back though and then suddenly she felt a swipe of them across her chest before she even realized that the second was back for more. She tried to get her arms up to block but the powerful blow finally hit her square in the temple and she felt her vision dance to black.

John felt Sam shift against him in wonder that he was still awake as John kept firing a hole through the black wings to secure their descent. He was finally offered a single second of peace when he saw Steffs carrying Dean, but it was wrenched away as he saw Ambre and Nessa fighting for their lives on the way down.

Steffs clutched Dean closely to her body as she dove for the ground. She needed to get out of the air, and she knew it well. She was in mid dive trying desperately to save the charges no matter what Gabriel had said. It was something ingrained in them all and for once she had felt an attachment to these. She could see her goal within a few feet and swung her legs under her slowly placing her feet on the ground and about to set Dean on the snow for a moment when she suddenly gasped.

Steffs looked down the length of her body her mouth wide as she felt the gurgle of blood rise in her throat and saw the four claws protruding from her chest all the way from the back. She couldn't breath...couldn't feel anything but cold pain as she slammed her elbow backwards and dislodged his claws from her chest. She stumbled around to face the bastard and shot him full on in the head the two of them falling in unison. Light and dark mirrored as the blood mingled in the snow around a still unconscious Dean.  
Sam had a hard time keeping his eyes open as he watched the chaos around him. Black wings swirled downward as body after body fell from the sky dotting the landscape like some fallen blight as he finally saw Dean's form resting in the snow next to a fallen Steffs. He wheezed against the cold air and the kick back from the gun that his father was firing around him as he tried to cover his ears that had taken to ringing...making the screams fall around him in echoes of their former glory.

Blood mixed like rain with the falling snow and the whole of the ground below was beginning to look like a scene out of some sick horror movie. Sam suddenly gasped as he saw a black wing flying away from the pack with Ambre in his clutches and a second black wing with the entourage like some sort of escort. "Dad." Sam screamed fighting the ropes that bound him to his father as he tried to do something...anything...to prevent it from happening.

"Dad!" Sam tried to access the powers inside him, but had to stop as his heart became erratic. Sam realized that his father couldn't hear him over the gun fire and screaming and he tried one last time watching as his skipping heart sank as Ambre was taken on the tides of this war. John still couldn't hear him though. Sam's head sank backwards onto John's chest as the tears dotted his eyes and fought to keep breathing. This was not happening...they couldn't let this happen...Sam looked down trying to console himself with Dean's form safely with in view.

Nessa was diving in that direction now and Robin was coming into view from the corner of his eye. But as his eye scanned the ground next to Steffs body he realized that Dean was no longer their. "No..." Sam choked on the word as John and him finally touched the ground and the gun fire continued against a sea of retreating blackness. 

Chapter Seven

_Six hours later_

Dean jerked awake feeling a cold sweat against his skin so thick that it had soaked through his clothes. He was on the ground the heavy manacles on his wrists evident without even moving. Dean rolled with a groan and took in his surroundings with every pain laced movement...every half turn that seemed to be shrouded in half closed eyes. He paused on hands and knees only briefly when he saw Ambre sitting on the floor against the opposite wall straight across from him.

Her hands were chained as well, but the chains hung loosely by her side. She was quickly wiping the tears from her eyes as she contained the sob seeing Dean stir. "Hey sleeping beauty." Her voice was weak...weak and shaking yet still holding an edge that let Dean know she wasn't broken.

"Hey yourself." Dean half laughed glad that the two of them were alone in the stone basement. Dean finally took a moment to take in her condition. Her left eye was swollen shut and her right arm was tied off yet blood was still soaking into the makeshift bandage of her over shirt. Her pants were gone. Blood marred her thighs from deep scratches. Dean swallowed thickly as she continued in his trajectory to his feet. "Did they..." He sniffed back the pain in his voice his eyes resting on hers.

"No...just worked me over good." Ambre paused, a tremble to the first part of the answer. She chuckled over a half sob before going on trying to find something to keep their spirits light at the moment. She obviously didn't want to go there. "I was to hot for them." She whispered and held up her right hand where a flame had appeared.

Dean let out a heart felt chuckle as he finally was able to pull himself to his feet. Ambre followed her shirt falling below her waist to cover her. "Come here...I'll heal you." Dean whispered as he walked to the edge of the chains. Ambre walked as far as she could and they both stretched out their hands trying to reach each other.

Their fingers stretched within half an inch and came short. Dean and Ambre both strained against their bonds to get the rest of the way but it was no use. 

"Son of a..." Dean started.

"No ...no it's alright." Ambre shook her head sniffing back another wave of tears. "You need to save your strength anyway...you're sick."

"Don't feed me that self reliant crap." Dean breathed. "You're bleeding to death...and these guys aren't finished with whatever they have up their sleeves. Now..." Dean took in a deep breath fighting against the weight that was against his chest now. "Stretch out your leg." Dean could just pull his own pants leg up against her bare leg and once their skin touched she'd be fine. Ambre took a step back though so he couldn't reach her.

"No...Dean you not well enough...you'll kill yourself and she won't kill me...she needs me."

"She...what...what are you talking about?" Dean looked to her in confusion and fear as he realized that it wasn't Alturoc that had them.

"It's Inan...she's taking over hell and she wants the baby...she won't kill me." Ambre explained as tears fell across her cheeks. "So we have time to figure out a way out."

"How..." Dean's voice fell as he watched her retreat to the wall.

"Sam had a vision that's all he could tell us about it before we jumped from the Helicopter." Ambre replied sinking against the wall again as she leaned her head back wearily.

"Jumped?" Dean racked his brain trying to put the last few hour together, but he was coming up with nothing. As a new fear surfaced in his eyes Dean walked to his own wall and sank down it right across from her. "Did everyone else make it?"  
"I think so...I think we were the only ones they took...John had Sam. They parachuted...They were almost to the ground when that bastard jumped me." Ambre nodded. "I thought you were dead when that Devil shot Nessa in the back...I think she was fine...she was still firing when the lights went out for me." 

"Damn." Dean whispered watching the horrific vision that her words painted in his brain.

"Yeah...it gets better." Ambre struggled to keep the tears from her voice as she kept talking. " We're in Las Vegas...some casino basement...smack in the middle of hells armies."

"You got any good news?" Dean laughed out nervously.

Ambre laughed again and let it die in her throat as she slowly met Dean's eyes. "We're alive." 

"Yeah." Dean nodded slowly holding her gaze. "Yeah."

The snowmobile trudged along over open country...over a landscape so ripe with the snow that the banks went high up the surrounding tree bark. The tree tops weren't far from the ground now. The wipers drove back and forth over the wind shield at a frantic pace trying to keep visibility as the occupants of the vehicle watched their breath come in puffs even with the limited amount of heat they were able to pump through the thing.

Nessa kept at a straight pace wincing every now and again as she felt her wings healing.

Robin stared out the back window as she ran a hand through Gabriel's hair, his head resting in her lap. He was still unconscious, his body fighting to heal the bullet wound slowly but surely. Tears dotted her face as she thought of Steffs. Her friend ...sister... had been near covered in the snow by the time they had set out walking.

It had been going on five hours now since they had walked to the local city of Wichita and stolen what they could from the ghost town. The humans that made it through the fight to the ground had elected to stay in Wichita with the survivors there...hold up some army base bunker. Robin had elected to fight though...and she knew once Gabriel woke, that he would too. So they sat in the back seat quiet as everyone else in the vehicle. Those that could were sleeping.

Sam had been out for hours now. He had passed out on the trip into Wichita in his father's arms. Nessa didn't have much to say save they were going to Las Vegas to get Dean and Ambre and hopefully they could meet up with the other army so they didn't have to wade through the armies there alone. "You should get some sleep." Nessa finally said softly to John who held Sam's head in his own lap as he pulled the blanket up over his son tucking it in around his shivering form.

John's head rested wearily against the window there as his hand continued to stroke through Sam's hair. "I'm good." John replied without looking back at her.  
"Yeah." Nessa nodded. "Everyone needs to keep their strength up." Nessa felt like she was back in hell. The pace...the exhaustion...wondering if they could actually pull this off. She had only ever doubted herself in hell...really doubted what she was capable of...and it tried her to the very limits. It had near killed what was left of her mind over and over and over until survival took over and did what was necessary. "So your not good. You need to sleep."

"I'll sleep when this is over." John replied flatly his voice numb with the loss of his oldest and the knowledge of what it was going to take to get him back...him and Ambre...and the baby that she carried.

"John quit being a hard ass." Nessa whispered listen to Robin's soft breathing behind her.

"Nessa I'd appreciate it if you'd shut up for now." John replied defensively.

The edge to both voice made Robin's neck bristle at the hostility there. She was about to say something about them calming down and not tearing into each other when Sam shifted against the front seat and slowly opened his eyes. 

"Where are we?" Sam gasped out suddenly. John sat up straighter instantly as he checked him over and found that his fever was still prevalent.

"We're six hours out from Vegas." Nessa gave him a soft smile her hostility seeming to dwindle away as she took in his open eyes. Sam let out a hard cough doubling over in the seat before his father began to pat his back again trying to ease his breathing. John met Nessa's eyes somewhat apologetically. She returned the gaze with that same soft smile she had offered Sam. 

"Dean? Ambre?" Sam asked as his coughing died down and he settled back against the seat pulling his arms up under the blanket and close to his body as he tried to stay warm.

"We're on our way to get them." John didn't know how they were going to accomplish that even with the weapons that they had managed to secure in the back. They had lost everything in the crash. Everything and then some.

"What about Steffs?" Sam asked softly remembering her body on the snow beside Dean's before he disappeared.

There was a pause...a silent tension that swept through the whole of the group. Sam knew the answer before anyone confirmed it, but it was Robin who spoke up from the backseat. "She didn't make it."

Sam closed his eyes momentarily wishing that everyone would stop dying...that there was something he could do. For once since this whole thing started...he truly felt powerless. He was tired of losing...losing sanity...losing his life...losing the people around him...the people that had begun to make this whole thing bearable. Most of all he was scared though. He didn't want to lose Dean...and right now...he was the only one who had a clear picture of what they were going to have to fight their way through in Las Vegas.

Nessa pulled the snowmobile to a halt at the outskirts of a large sprawling camp alive with the bustle of people and let out a long deep breath. "Fancy running into them." She breathed.  
Sam was about to ask who when he suddenly had to grab his head as the vision assaulted him.

His perception of his fathers lap began to shift gradually to a tent...a man sat across from him. But as the Sam in his vision sat and talked to him and the sound of his own erratic heart beat met his ears, the man's face began to change into a near featureless blob. He kept talking as his mouth stretched by the demonic presence there...talking to Sam as if everything was alright...as if nothing was amiss...like his face wasn't melting off...like there wasn't something sick and twisted underneath.

Sam came out of it gagging as John shouted his name and Nessa climbed out of the cab and around the other side quickly amassing a wealth of on lookers from the Foci camp they had just parked in front of. "The lost one." Sam breathed in and out slower and slower until all at once he choked on the last one and then couldn't force himself to draw in another... 

Chapter Eight

__

"Check his airway!" 

The screams rang out against a harsh wind as the echoes came and went...

"Clear!"

Flash

Sam looked to Dean with his head resting against the back of the wall of those cold stone walls and smiled, glad to see he was alright. "I thought Inan took you." Sam sighed sitting down next to him.

Dean looked over at him startled. "Dude, how did you get in here?"

Sam paused. How did he get here? He looked to Ambre who was starring at him her breathing a bit more rapid then normal as she watched him and Dean.

"Are you sure that's Sam?" Ambre finally called out. " Maybe they're trying to trick us...mess with out heads."

"She's got a point Sammy." Dean replied quickly.  
"I don't know..." Sam still hadn't figured it out, but he knew he was him and he was here and that was enough for him. "But Dean I am me...I needed to tell you something." 

"Ok...well out with it."

"Inan took over hell and is running things now." Sam started. "She's on her way down. She's not going to go easy."  
"What do you mean...what's she going to do...what did you see in your vision?" Dean asked carefully. He didn't understand all this, but he had a gut feeling that this was indeed his brother sitting beside him. "And while you're at it...you mind getting me out of these things?" Dean held up his wrists to show Sam the manacles.

"She's going to whip Ambre...right here...right in front of you...You've got to keep it together or you're going to kill yourself in your condition." Sam nodded reaching for the manacles, but his hands passed right through them and Dean's skin. They both froze looking to each other wide eyed in terror.

"Sammy." Dean's voice was barely over a whisper.  
"Son of a..." Sam and Dean breathed in unison as Sam pulled his hands back to look at them.

"I'm not...I mean I can't be..."

"Dead..." The all three said it this time.

"New power?" Dean asked hopefully.

"Maybe...no I don't think so." Sam whispered. "Something's pulling me back...but Dean..."

"What?" Dean asked still horrified at the prospect that his little brother seemed to be in spirit form before him.

"Don't die." 

"Well your in luck...that's one thing I'm good at." Dean replied as Sam completely disappeared from view. "Sammy! Sam!" he was gone though...

"Charging to 300...clear!" 

Sam came awake with a start, sucking in a deep breath as he felt a jolt of electricity seemed to waver through him.

"Sam?!" John screamed breaking free with a punch to someone who had tried to hold him back as he came around the table that Sam was laying on.  
"Dad? What happened?" Sam asked as his breathing slowly began to regulate.

"Your heart stopped." John's hands wound around Sam's neck as he leaned over and kissed his forehead in relief. He pulled back in amazement as he realized that the fever was gone. "You feeling better?"

Sam inhaled once more thinking on that. He actually wasn't aching from the fever any more and breathing was a lot easier. His heart rate seemed to be normalizing and the baffled guardians who had just shocked back into his body seemed to be looking over the vitals they were now taking in wonder. "Actually, Yeah...a lot better." Sam narrowed his eyes in confusion. "Dean..."

"What?" John asked his own eyes narrowing in confusion. "What about Dean? Is that what your vision was about?"

"No the vision was about something else...but I just saw Dean. He and Ambre are locked up in a basement in one of the largest casinos in Las Vegas. Inan was on her way down to see them...to..." Sam broke off swallowing thickly. "She's going to do a lot of damage. We've got to get there as fast as we can..." 

"Sam, are you sure?" John was at least glad to know that Dean was alive. He wasn't so sure about Sam's out of body experience just yet, but experience alone told him to trust his instincts on this one.

"Yeah...I'm so sure it's making me sick at my stomach." Sam nodded as he slowly sat up ripping the leads off his chests as the monitors gave their protest before the guardians began to turn the things off. "Everyone get out." Sam called at once, the authority in his voice startling John.

John expected some sort of protest, but no one did...they all walked out as fast as they could. John was about to leave himself against his better judgement, but Sam grabbed his arm. "Not you."

"Where are Nessa and the others?"

"In the tent next door...They're trying to help Gabriel." John replied . Sam nodded slowly as he worked to button up his shirt. "There's someone here I need to see." Sam slowly placed his feet on the ground and rose to his feet un worried even in the cold that he was barefoot. He wasn't cold...he wasn't even remotely uncomfortable and he didn't seemed phased by it. "Dad, get everyone rounded up...and meet me in the command tent in about five minutes...it's going to be important."

John didn't know why he was nodding, because every thing inside him was questioning every word that came from Sam's mouth. Still he was nodding...moving to do as he asked...and it was scaring the shit out of him. "We'll be there." John heard himself say.

OOOOOOOOOOOOO  
Sam walked across the ground barefoot and right to the command tent. The guardians outside began to step before him to block his entrance. "Sorry but no one gets in to see Vanashi. They're in a meeting right now anyway."

"Excuse me. He'll see me." Sam replied and waited for them to step out of the way before he smiled at them and patted one the shoulder on his way in the door. Several guardians and magus looked up at from where they were bent over a table looking over some maps and talking about strategies. One being seemed to pay him mind...and he stood at the very center of the table.

"Vanashi." Sam called out. He was already watching him though. His smile slowly working it's way across his face. The magus and Guardians looked between the two of them in wonderment before Vanashi excused them. They left the tent grumbling under their breath wondering what was happening as Vanashi took his seat at some plastic table and motioned for Sam to sit also.

Sam sank into the seat his sickness only a distant memory as he watched his vision beginning to unfold before him once more. Vanashi's face began to melt into the faceless blob as he introduced himself... said something about being glad to see how well he turned out...

Sam scoffed under his breath and leaned forward meeting the creatures eyes. "Look can we quit playing here...I really don't have time. You're not Vanashi. He's dead."

His smile froze then slowly turned into a frown. He was going to try to run. Sam could feel it. So he quickly used his ability to make sure that he was stuck fast to the chair there. "You're a lost one...a lot like a shape shifter, but so old that human's don't even have you in our lore. You don't have a soul. In fact the only way you're able to infiltrate the places that you can is because you take the soul of the person you want to imitate. So it's almost the real deal...but not quite. Vanashi, I know you're trapped in there somewhere...so I hope that killing this thing helps send you back to where you need to be..."

"You can't do this." The faceless beast roared at him. "You're not strong enough."

"You know about five minutes ago I may have agreed with you, now though...trust me I'm plenty strong enough."Sam watched the beast struggle to get out of his seat as Sam picked up his own gun from the table. "Oh wait beheading...guns won't work..." he looked around the tent and saw a machete resting on top of a supply trunk. "So what was the plan? You assume command and lead everyone into Inan's trap? Kill the whole resistence in one swoop?"

The lost one simply growled in response.

"You don't have to answer...I can read it in your mind. As well as the ambush plans...no no no don't go sending anything back to Inan with that psychic mumbo jumbo...feel that wall...that's me and my not strong enough self stopping you." Sam smiled as he looked down at the machete. "Do tell her one thing for me though...I'm coming for her."  
Sam suddenly struck with the precision of a hunter and sliced the lost one's head from his body. He turned and looked back as John, Nessa, a now healed Gabriel and Robin walked into the tent.

"Sam, what did you do?" John looked to the headless body falling out of the chair. The body though quickly began to fizzle and sputter before it melted into a black pool on the ground.

"I'm taking control of Foci command...before Inan gets you all killed." Sam said with the confidence of a king and a slowly growing smile. "We need to get ready...Inan already is. She set this whole thing up. She knows we're coming...she started the march herself...Vanashi here was her puppet..."

"A lost one...and there are others in line for Command..." Gabriel piped in.  
"It's nonnegotiable." Sam retorted. "And it's temporary. The next in line can have his place as soon as I have my brother and Ambre."

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

It wasn't a vision anymore...but a fact...and Dean's brief talk with Sam had done little but prepare him for what to expect.

He didn't know how he got here...trying to catch a breath that should have given him reason to hope that each one wouldn't be his last as he watched the lash marks that the whip left behind on the tender flesh before him. If he could have screamed, it would have torn through him with the force of an earthquake...if he could have forced a word out it would have been to curse the man that had done this to them all...if he could have killed...

Hands were bound, chains hanging loose enough that his wrists were chest level...just high enough that he could pull his body up to have a better look...though he didn't want to see. Her screams had ceased...lost to her sagging body and the blackness that had taken her after the first twelve lashes. Still he could hear the whip...could see her body jerk from the impact and all he could do was fight to breath...fight...he would fight...this wasn't over...It couldn't be.

"Have you seen enough?" Inan's voice was like a pale whisper course with jagged rock against her throat. Her voice was nothing like Ambre's...the woman she was now punishing for her lovers betrayal. 

"Let her go." Dean forced the words out in a gasp of rage and pain. Sam's warning had done little to help with all of this beside cause Dean to Worry over wether or not his little brother was dead or dying...

Inan's lips pulled tight into some hideous smile even though her visage was flawlessly beautiful. She moved closer and Dean jumped against the chains hard enough to make her take a step back. "Ten more." She called over her shoulder to the large muscles demon doing her bidding for her.  
Dean jumped against the chains his breath coming in waves of wheezing bursts. He wanted to just get his hands around her...just one touch If he could just tough the evil bitch he could kill her. "I swear to God I am going to send you some place you'll never come back from." Dean screamed at her and then had to pause nearing panic at his lack of breath...he fought to draw in another and then another until the panic at, at least his own mortality waned.

Inan turned at that her smile broadening as she stepped closer, yet still out of reach. "God? My dear boy I am God..." her smile faded slowly turning into a hard line of anger and determination. "And I'll be the only one left when were finished here...pity, you could have ruled with me...now I'm going to kill everyone you every loved and raise your baby as my slave and when she's old enough...I'm going to make her my new vessel."

Dean slammed against the restraints again his rage building to the point of losing control as he near choked on his fading heart beat. He couldn't even talk...the sickness having taken what the crash hadn't and the anger was only speeding this horridly drawn out process...  
"Cut him down." Inan called to one of the servants there. "And be careful not to touch his skin. Let him die in the waste on the floor." She looked back to Dean as he was slipped to the cold stone floor and the blood that had run from Ambre's torture. " I hope you live long enough to see her die, Dean. It's going to be beautiful. Tell Malachi I said stay out of hell...there isn't enough room for the both of us." 

Chapter Nine

Dean lulled his head to the side as the lights flickered on and off from the spiritual activities around the Casino before the lights finally went out. Casting the room in a thick darkness. He could still hear the whip.

Dean fought to keep breathing as he looked to where Ambre should have been...hanging lifelessly as they just kept going...He watched as a single candle lit the darkness and Inan spun Ambre around to face her. "Leave her al..." Dean couldn't even finish his statement as he felt his heart skip again.

Inan simply looked back at him that wolfish grin. " Have you got a good view?" She whispered. "Obviously I don't want to wait around for six more months..." Inan placed a cold hand against Ambre's cheek rousing the girl from the pain and agony. "There we are..." Inan then slowly let her hand trail down Ambre's body until it rested against her abdomen. " I Need you awake for this." Ambre was shaking her head trying to clear her vision as she felt the goddess's presence there before her.

Inan pressed her hand flat against Ambre's abdomen and Ambre's head fell backwards in a scream of agony. Dean stiffened cursing inwardly as he watched unable to do anything about it. Ambre's abdomen began to swell instantly as if the baby was reaching maturity in a matter of minutes instead of months. Dean's eyes widened as he doubled over coughing from the lack of air in his lungs.

"No " Ambre managed a looked down at her abdomen even through the pain as it continued to swell under Inan's hand. Ambre couldn't describe the feelings coursing through her. She felt powerless. Her flames wouldn't hurt Inan...and though she wanted to defend the baby she couldn't even make her broken body move beneath the paralytic effect that the chaotic growth seemed to be having. "No..." She whispered again...as if it was her only defense...pleading with a monster...a monster that had been inside her when this child was conceived.

Dean slammed his fist into the floor still fighting to breath as Ambre's water broke and she screamed again. He managed to roll onto his hands and knees gaining a bit of attention from Inan now.

"You can't possibly think that you're going to save her." Inan laughed watching him struggle slowly to his feet...wheezing in and out...his heart skipping more beats then it was hitting.  
Dean stopped all at once as his heart seemed to even out...his breathing began to get easier...he swallowed doubting this reprieve for a moment until he felt his strength returning in waves upon wave of sweet relief. Dean let his gaze shift slowly from the floor that he had just picked himself up off of as he took an unsure step forward and smiled.

Inan pulled her hand away from Ambre who sank against the chains now fighting labor pains as Dean advanced another step. "You..." Inan started worriedly.   
Dean's smile broadened. " Me?" Dean didn't mask the hatred for the goddess before him in his eyes. "I feel better. Thanks for asking."

Dean stepped another step forward and grabbed a hold of Inan with one swift turn pulling her body close to his as he wrapped his hands around her upper arms getting past the red material of the cloak so that he could contact skin with skin. "A lot better."

Inan gasped from under his touch as her skin began to pale to a pallor more reminiscent of a corpse ... "I told you not to touch her." He whispered next to Inan's ear the rage from earlier slowly burning low as Inan's life and power flowed through his fingertips...his palms...Dean held on for dear life despite the power surging through him just stubborn enough that he swore he was going to drain every last bit of her spirit from her body.

Inan burst into flames but Dean held on even as the burns formed and then were healed one at a time as all around the room demons and spirits life force was drained from just their proximity to him. The bodies began to hit the floor one at a time. Dean didn't stop until he held a lifeless corpse in his grasp and every last demon for six floors up was dead in his effort to keep himself healed long enough to withstand the flames.

"Dean " Ambre screamed breaking him out of the fury that had caught him up with Inan. She watched as he let the bones fall from his fingers and he hurried to her side.  
Dean let his hands wind around her face as he brought his lips to hers quickly and the pain that she felt coursed through him...all her wounds healing in the blink of an eye. He pulled back and quickly reached up with one hand wrenching the chains loose with the strength of the god that lay inside him.

Dean held her body and helped to ease her down to the floor listening to the panting as she was still fighting the pains of labor. "Hold on baby...we're going to get out of here...somehow."

Ambre nodded trying to remind herself to breath as the pain came without relenting. There was nothing natural about this...and her body was making it's protest. "I do not want to have the baby here." She nodded against Dean as he pulled her up and into his arms.

"We may not have a choice." Dean whispered against her cheek as he looked to the door...to their escape. The horror was that he knew what stood between them and salvation...and it wasn't just a single demon...some lone spirit whose bones he could torch...it was an army...and no matter how many he had killed in the last few moments...there were hundreds of thousands left...

OOOOOOOOOOOOO  
"Sam," John looked at his youngest unsure of what to make of this rapid personality change. "You are Sam right? I mean this isn't that god again?" John's voice mirrored the frustration of knowing that his own son had used his powers on him not so long ago as he found a spot close to Sam in the center of the camp where Sam had gathered everyone together. 

"Why do you ask?" Sam asked in confusion looked over the whole of the crowds.

"You're just not acting much like yourself." John said meeting his eyes.

"I haven't been much like myself for six months or more Dad. I'm a god." Sam replied with a chuckle.

"Oh." John nodded with a sniff. "For a minute there I thought you were my son...my mistake." John started.

"Dad," Sam laughed again. "Come on...I am your..."

"Don't..." John shook his head raising his voice with a fire of anger burning in his eyes. "You used your powers on me...you got inside my head...Sam...this power...this thing inside you...you have to get it under control...now. I want your brother and Ambre back as much as you do, but this ...this make over from hell...this is not you. I want my son back."

Sam drew his lips together in a fine line of anger as he nodded slowly. "That how you really feel?"

"Would I have said it otherwise?" John asked him in disbelief. "Come on Sam give control of this thing to someone else and we'll just go in on our own. They can fight their own wars and we can fight our way. I thought you didn't even want anything to do with these people...I sure as hell know Dean didn't and now your going to lead them?"

"You don't think I can?" Sam asked heatedly.

"Oh I know you can...but this isn't your war...I don't care who put that thing in you..." John replied steadily. "And this..." John motioned to him and his stance how he was looking over the thralls of Guardians glaring at him. " This isn't you."

Sam was silent for a long while as he thought on what his father was saying. Finally he let out a sigh and motioned Gabriel over. "Whose next in line?" He asked quickly watching Gabriel's eyes widen in surprise.

"I am if you go from under Vanashi...from the Foci...Sampson Kurgan is." Sam nodded slowly. It took him two seconds to make his decision. As Gabriel represented the rebel faction and he didn't want another split from the rebels falling under the power of another leader they had no respect for he decided to name Gabriel. "Congratulations...you just assumed command." Sam said softer. He felt the wedge of guilt wrapping around him from his previous activity...fighting the proud urges to reign in control from the left over arrogance from Daniseyal.  
Gabriel's took it in with a heavy burdened sigh as he met Sam's eyes. " Thank you." He nodded. "For what it's worth..."

"Yeah...we all have our moments." Sam nodded. 

Chapter Ten

OOOok I am going to get Chapter 11 up tomorrow along with my thanks...I just wanted to say a special thank you to Kat for kicking my butt...and thank you to everyone reading thus far...I hope that this comes across like I wanted it too and that you all enjoy it...lots of love and well wishes and I will do a more personal thank you tomorrowOOO

Sam was at Gabriel's side when he took to the air a few feet to rise above the army of guardians, magus and other magical creatures that Sam had yet to even put a name with. He assumed some were gnomes and others Satyrs, perhaps even the fables dwarf as in other fantasy realms often written about. He didn't question...didn't try to make it all fit neatly into some context that it should have instead he stood his ground awaiting the speech that was meant to explain the new chain of command to the armies.

Gabriel looked much better then When Sam had last seen him...somewhere lost in the air with Robin carrying him. Robin stood a few feet away in a cluster with Sam's father and Nessa.. She looked happy and horrified all at once. And Sam knew exactly how much the mixed feelings could war with one another...so that you could feel guilt for one while steeping in the other. It was a conflict of interests better left unthought out.  
"A few hours ago...Vanashi returned...to lead these great races to victory." Silence fell over the crowd as Gabriel called out loudly maintaining his position in the air above the group. "It was a lie." A low murmur began at the front of the crowd and worked it's way back until Gabriel had to hold both arms up to quiet the crowd. "The goddess Inan...back from the dead, having turned sides, and in control of hell's armies sent a lost one to us. Her plan was to lead us into a massacre at his behest...but Vanashi gave us one thing that she never expected and that was two gods to devout to fall sway to greed and power. He sent us Daniseyal and Malachi...two brothers whose famed exploits were not just their downfall...but their loyalty...their heart and soul devoted to a world that they would give their very lives for. Like us they seem prone to mistakes, unlike us, their sheer power makes their mistakes felt from worlds away and echoes throughout history...but they are here anew and with resolve to defeat our foe...as Vanashi planned."

Sam crossed his arms over his chest feeling less and less comfortable with his decision. Dean had sworn that they wouldn't fight for the Foci...that they would fight their own battle and that is exactly what Sam planned on carrying out. He knew Gabriel meant well...but they all had their loyalties and while Sam really empathized with the cause his true goal was much more personal.

"We will be victorious. We know of the ambush...we know of their numbers...and we being the soul protectors of this realm are entitled to defend it. We will fight...and we will prevail...and we will not give up...and not let go...and we will be here until the end. This is our right...our place...our privilege...and our destiny...Inan and Alturoc be damned...they know not what they had done." A cheer rose up from the crowd as the magus group together getting ready for what had already been asked of them. "You have ten minutes to ready yourselves...and then the magus will transport the whole of us to the front lines...I would remind you of one thing...when the humans of this world do not have an inkling of the things that hunt them...we are there...when the humans of this world do not have a prayer of hope...we are there...and when the humans of this world cry out...we hear. We do not do this simply for us...but for everything that Vanashi was trying to preserve...for Earth...we will all fight...and many will die...but this is the price we pay for freedom!" Another cheer rose up from the crowd.

Sam waited for Gabriel to descend before taking a few measured steps in his direction. "Nice speech." he said quietly.

"Thanks." Gabriel smiled thinking back to what he had said to Nessa on the plane. He wasn't above admitting his fault in the matter. Still being that Sam hadn't heard him say it...

"Yeah that's nice that you were going to leave us." Sam smirked as Gabriel's smile slowly dwindled. 

"I forgot you could read minds." Gabriel nodded. "I was wrong. And I apologize."

"Accepted...but I'm not going with your group..." Sam replied folding his hands into his pockets as the coolness to the air finally began to get to him.

"What do you mean? How are you going to get there if you don't let the magus transport you...you're brother..."

"Gabriel, I can get there just fine...and I'm going to my brother. I'm going to help them fight their way out from the inside." Sam looked past Gabriel as the news settled on his to John and Nessa. He couldn't take them with him. He was barely sure that he could make it happen himself...but something inside him...instinct perhaps...was telling him that he could be there in a mere moment just from the will of it. "We can attack on two fronts...you hit the front lines with the armies and we'll take care of meeting you in the middle." Sam placed his hand on Gabriel's arm a moment before starting in his father's direction. "See you on the field."

"You too...be careful."

"You too." Sam turned his full attention on his father and Nessa as Robin passed him with a smile on her way to talk to Gabriel.

"You ready for this fight?" Nessa looked up and greeted Sam by slamming her clip into her gun having reloaded the clip.

"Yeah...you?" Sam asked quietly not even having to guess at the worry that lined their brows at his behavior earlier.

"I was born ready." Nessa smiled. "I died ready...and fought my way out of hell to stay ready...so yeah Sugar...I'm ready."

Sam chuckled under his breath casting his gaze momentarily to the ground as the weight of what was about to happen began to settle in. He finally looked up meeting John's eyes though as Nessa took her hint and moved on to help the others get ready. "I'm going to get Dean and Ambre." Sam spoke up all at once.

John tucked his bottom lip in a bit and slowly began to nod. Sam could hear his thoughts like someone was screaming, but John held it in as if somewhere he knew that this wasn't his place to start barking out orders. Hell had changed him. Sam could feel the love there...and the fear...and the pain...and he didn't know what to say. He had the power of a god inside him...and still his mind blanked in the presence of his father's love and pride. "You do what you have to do." John wasn't taunting him...he wasn't shoving him aside. He was offering Sam something that was worth more then anything else John could have expressed in words...his trust. "I'll be with Nessa, Robin, and Gabriel fighting my way to you." 

John stood there a moment he and Sam locked into each other as they seemed to be speaking volumes without a word. Finally it was John who took the step forward and wrapped his arms around Sam. Sam instantly returned the hug and they stood there locked in the embrace for what seemed an eternity until the emotions began to over run Sam's senses and he had to step back. John wiped at his eyes before he said the most uncharacteristic thing he had ever said. "Sam, take care of Dean...you boys make it out safe...and I'll see you somewhere in the middle."  
"I will...and you better be there." 

"Hell couldn't hold me back ...I'll be there." John promised. "Now go help your brother."

"Yes Sir." Sam smiled...and like that he was gone...disappearing into thin air...

Chapter Eleven

Dean inched toward the door using his senses to feel if anything was moving nearer. So far he seemed to have cast some reserve into the hearts of those who would try. He couldn't feel anything moving closer to them, but he also couldn't chance moving Ambre...her contractions were right on top of each other.

Ambre propped herself up locking her arms against her elbows as she panted against the pains wavering through her abdomen. She knew she should have felt some measure of relief and she was glad that the pain that had dragged her into unconsciousness from the lashes against her back was gone...but the labor and their inability to move because of it had quickly sucked what was left of her relief from her soul.

Dean returned from the door looking somewhat calmer as he slowly lowered his body at her feet and looked under her shirt a hand gently touching her abdomen. "I don't even know what I'm looking at here...you know your going to have to talk me through this..." he whispered.

Ambre laughed at that before she broke off as a tears slipped past her defenses. "You sure knew what you were looking at when we got into this mess." She breathed. The contraction had subsided a moment. Dean half smirked. "Just tell me when you see the baby's head." She finally got out as she clenched her teeth around another contraction.

Dean raised an eyebrow and looked again. "Not yet..." he paused as he noticed the next contraction hitting her and tried to help with a soft. "Just breath Ambre...breath." As if to further explain Dean took a breath and exhaled slowly.

Ambre met his eyes with a glare. "Don't tell me to breath...I am breathing!"

"Alright...alright...and your doing a great job." Dean nodded his eyes widening at the anger in her voice.

"God, quit patronizing me " Ambre screamed through her still clenched teeth.

"I wasn't...I mean..."

"Dean, shut up." Ambre raved on.

"Yes Ma'am." he suddenly felt like things couldn't get much worse. It was one thing to have everything on the other side of that door hating you...but labor seemed to have brought out Ambre's own anger and Dean really didn't know how to handle it.

Dean felt his own muscles relax as the contraction finally eased off. They both seemed to breath out together.

"This is a little sooner then I thought..." She panted looking to her squirming stomach. "What if she did something to the baby...I mean besides make it grow to term..." She panted as she let her head lull back, exhausted already.

Dean bristled wondering why he hadn't thought of that before. Having just gotten used to even thinking that Ambre may be having a baby earlier that day before. He wasn't exactly set into being a father...right this second. In fact many times over the last few hours he had wondered if he or Ambre would live long enough for the baby to be born...now...he looked to her stomach and frowned. What if Inan had? God...why couldn't there be some element of normal to any of this?

For once in his life Dean doubted his resolve to do what had to be done if Ambre's fears were confirmed. Still how the hell would they know? Dean swallowed knowing all at once what his fathers fears for Sam must have been with whatever knowledge he had gleamed that had yet to be shared. The not knowing...the precautionary what if's and the resolve to take care of the problem should it arise. Still he couldn't muster up the will to say what was on his mind about it right now. Not with so much else in the present to worry about.

"I'm sure the baby is fine...normal... Inan just brought it to term." Dean winced as Ambre's hand wound around his and squeezed it painfully tight her breathing becoming even more ragged.  
"You don't know that." Ambre shook her head wanting to believe it, but knowing that neither of them could confirm it.

"Come on I'm a god...I should know these things." Dean let his smile beam with charm as he tried to bring a bit of humorous relief to the both of them. Ambre let out an exaggerated "Ha" that let Dean know her contraction was beginning again as her hand squeezed his tighter. Dean grimaced under the grip she had on him before checking again to see if he saw the baby's head...still not there yet.

"Speaking of gods" She panted scrunching her face up against the pain. "Why in God's name did I climb into bed with you! Nightmares aren't that bad...I should have shook them off and gone on with my life...Ahhh." She broke off biting back the scream from the pain as Dean near screamed with her biting down on his bottom lip as he looked to his hand turning bone white beneath her grip. Dean fought back a whimper as he swallowed and then exhaled sharply once she suddenly released her hold on him.

"You don't mean that...it's just the pain talking." Dean panted along with her as he saw her begin to relax only to have another contraction within mere moments...barely enough time to draw in a complete breath.  
"Don't you tell me what I mean!" Ambre screamed back.

"Ok..." Dean held up his hands defensively as he ducked down taking another look just to escape her glare for a moment. Dean widened his eyes making a face where she hopefully couldn't see it at her sudden attitude.

"I saw that." He heard her near growl. Dean closed his eyes and wiped the look from his face as he muttered a "Shit" under his breath then bounced back up to look at her with confusion lining his brow. 

"Saw what?" he asked innocently meeting the anger in her eyes.

"Dammit Dean." Ambre let her head lull back again. 

"I mean it...saw what..."

"Dean..." She warned and he half expected to see flames dance off her body...but instead he felt a presence at his back. Dean stopped his muscles pulling rigidly tight as he turned to look over his shoulders...he loosened up immediately when her saw and instantly knew that it was Sam there. 

"Thank God." Dean breathed pushing himself to his feet as he didn't even question how in the hell Sam had managed to do it. He could feel his own power surging through him...so He knew Sam had to have learned a few more tricks as well.

"I thought you two would be halfway through the city by now." Sam frowned even as Dean suddenly near knocked him over with a hug. Sam looked over his brother's shoulder as Dean whispered.

"We ran into a little problem."

"Little?" Ambre screamed back.

Sam felt Dean flinch beneath the hug and looked Ambre over his eyes widening at her extended abdomen and condition. "She's having the baby?'

"Ya think?" Ambre glared at Sam. Dean pulled back and looked back to Ambre forcing a smile with a nod to Sam and 'Help me' look in his eyes.

Sam and Dean both looked to the door in unison as they brought a hand to their faces taking in the severity of the situation as Ambre reared her head back and let out a low moan. They finally met each others eyes. "She can't be moved yet." Dean finally replied.

"A battle is about to break out in the city...I told Dad we'd meet him in the middle...how long you think this is going to take?"  
"I don't know." Dean swallowed. "Ambre how long does this usually take?"

Ambre's mouth fell open in disbelief. "Too long." She growled pounding her fist into the floor.

"No I mean it's just that..." Dean's hands started to move as he talked and Ambre cut him off with another glare meant to break him into a smaller man.  
"It's just nothing..." A measure of the anger left her voice as she near collapsed on the floor. "Look it takes as long as it does...it's different for everyone. Please tell me you see the head..." She whimpered as she stared at the ceiling overhead.

Dean dropped back to his knees in front of her ignoring the look Sam gave him as he pulled her shirttail up and looked. "No."

"Dammit." She breathed.

"You're delivering?" Sam asked Dean in wonder.

"Dude, you see anyone else?!" Dean asked in frustration.

"Oh good Lord...if you two want to fight about it then take it in the hall...I'll do this myself!" Ambre screamed suddenly as Dean felt her muscles constrict under his hand on her abdomen.

"No no it's alright...I'm here..." Dean quickly got out in a rush sharing a concerned glance with Sam.

Chapter Twelve  
Inan wavered into her new form and took a step forward before she slammed her presence, her essence, her life force - through the mind that she had taken hold of and crushed the young woman's mental capacity beneath her hold. She growled low in a snarl as she made her way into the Casino and went to find Alturoc. This was going to end now. Tonight. She was not going to lose, not to Daniseyal, and sure as hell not to Malachi...if she had to destroy it all...she wouldn't lose.

Alturoc placed another candle around the circle and stepped inside looking to the heavens. He turned once hearing the roof door open and looked to Inan with a sigh. He had never wanted to share a rule...but he'd take second fiddle to complete ostracization. He thought she was dead there for a moment...and gleefully so. Unfortunately he knew it wasn't that easy.

"You're already working on it?" She barked out from behind him.

"Yes Ma'am." he nodded as he stretched his arms out and cast his gaze heavenward. "They will all bow or die."

"And if they should resist?" Inan wanted to make sure they were on the same page before she let him continue.

"Then I'll destroy the weave and we'll leave." Alturoc replied knowing that he was being tested. He was resolved to do as she asked for one reason only. He held an ace up his sleeve. One that had been carefully planned to the last detail. And he'd be damned if he was going to give up this world to or for her. "Go lead your armies...I have this taken care of." Alturoc finally replied willing her to leave him alone long enough to finish his preparations.

"Very well." Inan turned and walked back out the door on her way to the basement. She wasn't about to go it alone though...her generals were already lining the field...taking their place to fight along the Vegas strip. Still there were a host of chain devils in the Casino and she gathered them all on her descent. By the time she took to the stairwell she had at least a hundred and with her own power to rival Malachi's she would lay waste to him before he knew what hit him. 

OOOOOOOOOOOOO

Dean looked up as soon as he felt it and Sam and he both uttered a quick "They're coming."

Ambre looked to her writhing stomach and widened her eyes in terror as her hands wound around her abdomen protectively. "Do you see it yet?" She asked desperately. Dean shook his head meeting her eyes.

Ambre nodded feeling the urge to push over come her. Dean looked back down and gasped seeing the head slowly begin to become visible. "Oh my God." he breathed. "I see it Ambre."

Sam cast his look in their direction then looked away feeling awkward having taken a peak. He moved to the door erecting a psychic barrier against the outside of the door so that nothing could come through as he tried to figure out how they were going to end this. To get out.  
Between him and Dean he had a feeling they could sap and beat their way through the hordes, but he needed Dean's full attention and he didn't have it right now.

"I'm going to push." Ambre was saying at Sam's back and Sam smiled thinking of what was happening there. He never would have believed in a thousand years that Dean was going to be a father...let alone a father over night.

Ambre screamed out as Dean kept offering his support telling her to keep going...that she could do it. When she almost collapsed into unconsciousness Dean was screaming at her like a soldier on a battle field. Telling her to stay with him...screaming for her to push. Sam focused on the barrier until he heard a soft gurgle behind him and he whirled around in time to see Dean holding the baby.

"You have to clear out her...mouth." Ambre was panting a little too hard...barely getting the whisper out as she gave the instructions to Dean. Sam took notice of the amount of blood on the floor and felt his breath catch in his throat.

"Sam." Dean called out worriedly. Sam took note of the tears dotting Dean's cheeks as the elder cleared the infants air way and then handed her to him. "Hold her a minute."

"You need to cut the cord." Ambre whispered barely holding on.

Dean was moving to Ambre though pressing his hands to her throat...moving them tenderly to her face as he meant to heal her. She smiled through the haze of lethargy that was threatening to take her, at his touch, before her eyes finally settled on the baby. "We did it." Ambre breathed kissing his hand softly.

"Yeah...yeah we did." Dean nodded as a tear slipped past his eyes and rolled down his cheek a soft smile mirroring her own. He leaned down and kissed her forehead. Then he felt the throngs of demons slam into Sam's barrier right outside the door.

Sam gave a groan as he felt Inan at the barrier with her minions. She was tearing into it and he felt the repercussions strong enough that he almost dropped the baby. "Dean...she's not dead!"

Dean jerked his head up as Ambre pushed his hands away in a moment of panic. "No." She breathed. "She can't take her... Dean you can't let her have her..."

"She won't get her." Dean promised as he quickly pushed Ambre's weak hands away so that he could hold onto her again and give her body renewed life.

Sam let out another groan dropping to his knees as he felt the fire connect inside him from Inan's link to him through the barrier. The sweat glistened along Sam's brow as he slowly eased the baby girl into Ambre's arms. "Dean we have to do something." Sam screamed.

Sam further sank to the floor as the vision that Daniseyal had given him to begin with resurfaced and he saw in real time what was becoming of the Foci's front lines. "Oh God." Sam bellowed.

"I am doing something...Just hold on Sammy." He couldn't seem to do enough fast enough...he needed to be helping Sam, but he couldn't let Ambre die...couldn't let Inan get the baby and for the life of him he didn't know how to stop it all. He had just touched Ambre when he felt something unholy wrap around his body and Dean didn't even have a chance to scream before he was ripped away from Ambre and Sam leaving them there as Ambre's life was still slipping away. 

Dean floated on a wave of black and blue arcs that faded into shades of gray as the pain ripped through his body.

_Is this what you want?_ The voice called out from the void.

The scene from the basement flashed before his eyes and Dean fought the hold that this thing had over him trying to get back to Ambre to Sam...There was another flash and the guardians slammed into the front lines of shades and chain demons while the black wings pounded them from above with gun fire and knives.

Some where in the fray John, Nessa, Gabriel, and Robin were falling all to fast to the waves. They were getting slaughtered. John fell under the first wave as shades ripped through his body one after another...followed swiftly by Nessa as a chain wrapped around her throat and separated her head from her body...their bodies were swept into the sea as hell's armies surged forward against the guardians and magus.

_You can stop this _

"How?" Dean gasped out his brain swirling around the pain of watching the destruction of everything he loved. Suddenly he was standing on a roof top...an unfamiliar man standing before him. His tears of hatred and pain falling freely. Wrath and vengeance couldn't even mask the pain that wrought the tears.

_Take it all back_

"Take it all...take what back?" Dean didn't understand. The lack of understanding from the beginning of this whole nightmare begged for answers that he was so battered and utterly exhausted from the utter lack thereof. 

Finally he heard an actual voice instead of a voice rattling around in his head and he looked to the man before him realizing who he was.

"Alturoc." Dean breathed.

Dean advanced a step forward fully intending to just grab the evil bastard and drain the life from him. What did he have to lose? That wasn't already lost? Dean found his mind swimming to the basement that he needed to get back to. That was all there was left to lose and he needed the bastard to send him back there...Sm may have been able to disappear and reappear wherever he wanted to now...but Dean couldn't. That is what stopped him from advancing any further. "You send me back down there! You bastard!"

"Why would I do that?" Alturoc's face twisted into a sneer. "They've already been lost and you know it...you just want a way to save them and I am giving it to you...just take it back!"

"I can't take it back. I didn't start it to begin with!" Dean screamed. "But I can kill you, you son of a bitch."

"Wait It's not going to bring them back!" Alturoc called out holding his hands up defensively. "I can help you...but only if I'm alive."  
"They aren't dead yet! How could you possibly help me?" Dean screamed at him knowing that every minute he wasted up here with this Demon lord that he was letting Ambre die...that his father was falling to the hordes...That Sam was losing his fight to Inan who had yet to even step through the door...that the whole world was losing this battle.

"I can send you back. You can sacrifice Malachi to stop Vanashi from ever releasing the gods that came to be inside you...Inan won't tap into the weave and destroy the world...You'll never meet Ambre and Nessa...hell Sam won't even have to live with the pain of remembering it all. Ambre gets to marry Shay...Nessa never goes to hell..."

"Wha..." Deam staggered backwards a few steps in disbelief. This had to be a trick.

"I can send you back to the moment Vanashi was about to release the gods from the vessels. Back in time...to your car...to that road outside of Huntington..."

"What are you playing at? I can't leave them...not like this...Sam...Ambre ...the baby...Send me back to the goddamn basement!" Dean lurched forward through a haze of desperate tears and came up short when he was unable to step into the circle with Alturoc. "Dammit...you send me back down there NOW!"

"What will that solve?" Alturoc screamed back smiling at the fact that he now felt safe where he stood.

Dean was about to start screaming again when he let the words begin to sink in...what would it solve? "I'll kill her...I'll kill Inan and that will solve a lot."

"How? You haven't managed it so far and you've tried twice...hell you even killed Ambre to do it the first time...nice job by the way! Face the facts...by the time this fight is over there won't be enough life force for you to bring a handful of people back! You need life to restore life and Inan isn't going to leave enough for you to do that! You go back and all this..." Alturoc motioned to the sounds of battle below. "All this goes away. No more pain...no more dying..."

"Ambre and the baby..." Dean breathed  
"I didn't say that it wasn't without it's downside...but you don't have to subject half the world to the suffering at the hands of the gods inside you. You'll have another chance...she'll have another chance...away from this life...making babies with a normal guy...living a normal life... All you have to do is release Malachi at the moment you return and his combined energy from being in the vessel in the plane and inside you will destroy the plane...the vessels...the whole problem...The paradox will nullify the threat."

"Not the whole problem...you'll still be trying to take over earth." Dean glared at him not knowing how he could say yes to giving away a life that was so closely bound to his...sacrificing a child that he was bound to protect...yet by protecting the baby he was failing everyone else. Sam...his father...Ambre...or was he? God he couldn't make it all alright...there was no black and white...there was no way for this to end without some sort of sacrifice...even if this guy was so full of shit that he couldn't live up to what he was suggesting.

"...but you're the only one who'll remember that." Alturoc whispered. "It's worth the risk. All you have to do is let me send you back...the paradox will take care of the rest...it's easy...it's painless..."

"I can't trust anything you say..." Dean began.

"People are crazy...Demons you get...then trust this. Inan was never supposed to be here. I want the world on a platter and as long as she's alive she won't rest until she has it in her grasp or destroys it for refusing to yield. Call me old fashion but I like the worlds I control to be ripe with slaves for the taking...and a lush oasis at that...so if you doubt everything else then trust that I want control...power...and I'm not willing to share...and if that means I have to go back a few steps and start over then I'm willing to give all this up...so long as you can sacrifice the pain and torment of the last six months...you'll be the one with the heads up...the one with the advantage...and I can only risk that to get out from under the goddesses thumb. All you have to do is say yes." Alturoc replied heatedly. "It's easy..."

"It's giving up..." Dean was the one giving up...giving up everything and nothing...going back to that basement meant what? Possibly holding Inan off long enough to maybe save Ambre, the baby, and Sam...but what then...what about when there was no armies left...Ambre was human again he couldn't possibly expect to keep her alive against a god...not forever...God...Dean had one inside him and he could still feel the pull of his spirit prayer to the one he neglected to allow himself to believe in for so long.

"What? Giving up what?" Alturoc's eyes widened that he hadn't jumped at the first offer. "Watching your whole world fall apart? Watching your brother die...watching her die...watching your daughter get taken by that Bitch! Your father dying - again...seeing what Inan leaves when she's done...cause trust me even if you win here...you don't win "

"My father..."

"Will still be in hell... living out his sentence...and being proud that he did what he did to save you..."  
"Ambre..."

"Will be back home with Shay...where she always belonged...Did you think you were going to make her happy? That running and fighting for the rest of your lives was any way to raise a child?"

"I never thought that..." Dean breathed

"...just say yes and let me end this " Alturoc screamed.  
Dean swallowed thickly not believing how easy everything could seem. Easy and so painfully difficult. All the suffering that could be ended if what Alturoc said was true. All his suffering that would begin.

Dean walked to the roof tops edge and looked over seeing hell's armies overrunning the foci's. His father was already dead again. It wasn't just some trick...some demon in his head. Malachi's spirit let him search for John's and he was already lost...as was Nessa...and Robin...Gabriel. Far below them in the basement his brother held on for dear lie trying with everything that was in him to keep Inan as bay...Ambre held their baby that he had barely been able to look at yet...a baby that he feared as much as was willing to love. A baby that wasn't just his but apart of this whole gods thing. Apart of the monster still trying to take on the world...a part of the god within him. And Sam... god for him to have not lived the horror of the last six months. For Ambre to not have lived through that. It was like a dream come true when he really looked at it...it resolved more then it conflicted...if he could just trust him enough...it seemed a bit ...too much...to easy all at once.

Dean turned back to Alturoc his arms crossed over his chest. "I'll fight you...if I go back."

"I won't even know you're coming..." Alturoc smiled.

"Says you." Dean nodded. "What do I have to do?"

"Just say yes." Alturoc replied quietly. 

"Yeah...yes...do it...send me back." Dean met his eyes not believing he was about to do it, but hoping like hell that it actually worked and praying that it didn't.

Chapter Thirteen

Alturoc's smile couldn't have grown more. It was like an answer to some prayer...but the beginning to some nightmare at the same time. Dean looked behind him to the battle beyond. The noise was making him sick to his stomach much like the thought of what was happening far below in the basement with Ambre and Sam and Inan...and how they would never know...but somehow he was saving them from ever having to relieve this...to ever live it at all.

The last few days had taken it's toll on Dean...but he hadn't given into it. Not except that one moment where he'd been forced to rest from the knock to the head he'd taken in the subway explosion in which Steffs had saved him. He hadn't eaten since long before then and had scarcely had a drink. There had been too much to do. No time...and every time they had gotten close to thinking that they might have a free moment...to do something like say sleep...eat...drink...showering had kind of gotten tossed out when the power went out and the pipes froze from the new ice age...but every simple thing in life had been uprooted and turned on it's head.

They didn't have time for such essential luxuries. No it had been one unending battle to another...one long fight to the next with barely a reprieve. There were a few months when they had almost grown accustomed to the quiet life of hiding...but that had long since expired. Now he was set to endure hell on some endless repeat cycle...only the very demon that had in some ways caused all of this was giving him a way to break the cycle...a way to fix it all...and as much as Dean wanted to believe that this was going to make things alright...he knew better. He felt the air wrenched from his lungs as Alturoc began the spell.

Dean panicked a moment thinking that Alturoc had gone back on his already shaky word and was trying to kill him, until he felt Malachi's spirit screaming in his head and Dean near doubled over from the force of the power. That's when the air around him began to fold in on itself. Dean felt his body flicker in and out of phase on the roof in some weird spirit haze before all at once he felt the steering wheel beneath his fingers, the seat of the long since demolished Impala once again beneath him. The there was something he had hardly prepared himself for... the sudden burst of Malachi being completely ripped from his body.

The ripping left Dean gasping for breath...having to use the steering wheel to hold his body up and was followed by a fireball that erupted in the night sky with enough of a boom to rattle but not shatter the windshield. As if that hadn't been enough to awaken an already groggy Sam the slamming on the brakes that near sent Sam through the windshield and then a not so easy transition to the side of the road sure enough was.

"What the hell." Sam's voice broke through the haze in Dean's head as he noticed Sam's attention being drawn to the skies far above Huntington.

It was over...Dean's eyes were transfixed on the firelight his brother seemingly blaming his odd behavior on that as Sam reached for the door handle to get a better look at the plane that was lighting up the night. It was obvious that Sam thought Dean had pulled over because of something so significant. Dean however had finally caught his breath and was now leaning back wearily, Malachi's spirit having taken the last of his reserves of energy. It was like the god within had been all that was sustaining him on that forced fast and now his body had to deal with the consequences.

Dean watched Sam move around the side of the car, his neck craned back so he could get a good view as Dean slowly swallowed back the tears and fought the urge to push himself to the limits one more time...for something completely frivolous considering all that had occurred...or hadn't as the case now was...to embrace his brother. Dean knew Sam didn't have a clue though. God he had to act normal somehow. He didn't want Sam to know...to ask...Dean sure as hell didn't want to have to explain it to anyone. He just had to pull it together...to get a grip.  
Dean gripped the door handle in a wave of dizziness as the smell of burning flesh from the battles below seemed to have followed him through space and time the smell embedded deep into the fibers of his clothes. Dean gagged on the smell as his senses seemed to come back online one at a time. He gave a tug at the door handle and got the door open. The cool night air was warmer then the hypothermic conditions that the gods had protected them from only seconds ago and his wind burned skin tingled with tiny pin pricks of heat as he pulled his shaking legs out of the floor board with a twist of his body.

Dean had a vision of normal...of what he was going to do...if everything went perfectly - he could suck it up...shake it off...or at least pretend to do some combination of the two as he got to his feet and walked over to Sam so the two of them could ponder what wonder had caused such a strange anomaly in the night sky. Life was far from perfect though and Dean's body was a testament to that at the moment. Spoken in true form as he tried to get his legs under him and ended up in an unconscious heap on the gravel beside the driver's door.

Sam had given Dean one look upon waking in a panic laced daze and having his focus suddenly shifted to the explosion over head. Dean seemed transfixed on the object leaning over the steering wheel to get a better look out the windshield. Sam decided that the whole pulling over thing had to be because of the explosion and he was quick to get the door open and climb out to get a better look.

It looked like some sort of plane, helicopter, something large enough to burn for a while as it broke up in the atmosphere. And it looked as if large chunks were falling from the main explosion now...raining down in a fiery spray. Sam tucked his hands in his pocket studying the way the pieces were breaking apart when he realized that Dean's door had opened but he had yet to see Dean raise up beside the driver's side door. Sam slowly turned around and walked around the side of the car. His pace increased in a panic when he caught sight of Dean's arm on the ground under the door.

"Dean " Sam had barely rounded the door when he took in the gravity of Dean's condition. He was out cold, white as sheet, and his body seemed to be shivering of it's own accord against the gravel there. Sam reached down to swipe the hair from his face and paused feeling the heat that came off his brother's forehead...God he was burning up. Sam, couldn't explain it as of yet. At the moment all he could think to do was get his phone out and make the call to 911. Sam looked over Dean's shallow breathing as he tried to make some sense out of this while giving their location including the mile marker a few yards away as he looked up at the dissipating fire above feeling a strange sense of dejavu over come him.

It wasn't until a few hours later when Sam had come up completely short that he finally found some peace as the doctor walked into the ER exam cubicle. "How is he?" Sam asked quickly having been sitting there for what seemed an eternity watching the rise and fall of Dean's chest.

"He's stable. I want to go ahead and admit him and keep him over night." Doctor McCarver smiled reassuring to Sam. "He's fighting off some sort of shock and seems pretty well dehydrated. We're giving him fluids and he'll need to start off on some soft foods to begin with while his body gets used to solids again. How long had your brother been without food, Son?"  
Sam narrowed his eyes in confusion. They had been on the road for a while, but Dean had eaten a few hours ago. "Not long." Sam shrugged.

"Well the fever could be responsible for this level of dehydration...if left unchecked for a while, but his body chemistry seems to suggest several days without food. Has he had any signs that he's been unsatisfied with his body?"

"What you mean like intentionally starving himself?" Sam was even more confused at that. "No sir. He's not the type. I know he ate not long ago."

"Has he been vomiting?" The doctor sounded like the confused one now.

"Not that I'm aware of, but I was asleep the last few hours of our drive." Sam scratched at the back of his head looking back to Dean when he gave a groan signifying at least a rise in his level of consciousness.

Dean stirred listening to Sam and the Doctor talking about his condition. He cursed inwardly realizing that Alturoc had not meant for him to survive the trip back in time. The demon seemed to know what a toll the whole process was going to take on an already worn body. "That bastard." Dean breathed realizing as his voice reached his ears that he had said it out loud.

Sam was at his side instantly. "What was that?"

"Ugh." Dean groaned again trying to shift in the bed but not finding a single comfort no matter how he settled back. "I don't know..." He was quite convincing in his current condition at playing dumb. "How'd I get here?" Dean could put two and two together but he wanted to appear as confused as possible hoping to have a chance to figure out what Sam knew before he tried to buffer that news with what he needed to leave out and still find some sort of explanation. Sam wasn't stupid.

"You passed out on the road." Sam replied looking back to the doctor who was now checking over Dean's vitals again.

"He may be disoriented for a bit...the fever's still pretty high." The doctor answered his unasked question as he began to pump up the blood pressure cuff to take the reading. "How are you feeling Mr. Hanover?" The doctor looked down at Dean then back to the gauge as he asked the question.

"Like hell." Dean replied wondering what his first name was supposed to be as he thought over the ID's in the Impala. They hadn't salvaged many of them and it had been months since he had combed through them. 

It wasn't long before the Doctor excused himself happy with the results from the vitals leaving Sam and Dean in a sort of contemplative silence. They were waiting fro the coast to clear so that they could talk...that much was understood. Sam sank into the chair beside Dean's bed wiping a hand over his eyes tiredly as the sun began to peak through the window at his wall side cubicle.

Dean was waiting for Sam to start with the questions as his eyes rested on the sight of the light coming in over the tiny cracks in the blinds. It was over. At least the worst of it...at least the...Dean swallowed transfixed on the sight. He wiped at the tear that had escaped his defenses fully intending to say that his eyes were watering should Sam ask. He turned his attention away from the window finally and licked at his dry lips for once glad about the pace that was before them. The hunt...the research...it was all slow and decisive...calculated...sure there were risks and they didn't know everything that lay ahead of them, but it felt like home...like some safe haven away from the life he had grown accustomed to.

Dean was about to start as Sam seemed reluctant to ask anything yet but came up short when he gave a startled jump at the sound of an infant crying in the distant. Dean couldn't have hidden the play of emotions on his face if he had tried. In fact his whole response seemed to happen on reflex alone as he jerked the blankets back and much to Sam's surprise pulled himself to his feet so that he could move to the edge of the curtains. The Iv stand gave an awkward squeak as it was yanked after him and Sam was on his feet calling out as he moved with Dean to the curtains edge.

Dean pulled the curtain back as Sam's restraining hand rested lightly on his shoulder, though Dean scarcely felt it as the emotions coursed through him like a whirlwind. He spotted the source and took in a slow measured breath watching the young mother standing at the nurses desk a bright smile adorning her alabaster skin. The bundle in her arms quieted with a contended gurgle as the nurses at the desk came to surround the young woman.

"Oh we missed you, Nancy!" one voice seemed to stand out from the pack and Dean had to wrap his arm around Sam to stay on his feet as he saw Ambre shedding her coat from apparently having just walked in the door. She embraced the young mother then looked down into her arms at the baby there. "She's so precious." Ambre breathed with an awed gasp as her fingers lightly delved into the swaddled blankets.

He watched Ambre's face light up as the baby's finger wrapped around hers and swallowed again. He had meant to prepare himself to see her, meant to check and see if she was doing alright. That she was happy and content in this life so far removed from the one he had shared with her. His questions had all been answered though as he now watched her share her own good news by way of engagement rings to all her friends. The young mother, who Dean assumed was a nurse who was off duty...or just a very good friend by her reaction was now joining the crowd of nurses exchanging hugs with Ambre over her announcement.

Dean's gaze slowly traveled down to the floor as he finally seemed able to hear Sam talking to him...asking him what the hell he was doing. Dean was remembering his first conversation with Ambre though, so many months previous. Where in she had told him that she and Shay had planned on going out to eat that night...the night the plane exploded...the night she watched him die. He remembered thinking that there was a price to pay for so much power directly after that when he unintentionally healed her. There was always a price. "I ...uh..." Dean couldn't mask the tears that rimmed his eyes, tears he refused to let fall as he tried not to meet Sam's gaze, scared that he would be able to read something there. "I don't know."

"You don't know what you're doing?" Sam asked in confusion. Dean looked up one more time to see the smile on Ambre's face as she was pulled into that group hug. She was alright...she was happy. That was all that mattered, right? Sam was healthy and confused...but safer then he had been. That should have counted for something.

"I had to see." Dean didn't know why he said it. Maybe because he knew that once his mind recovered from the shock that he would be much less forth coming. Maybe because he knew that this was as honest as he could be and for once in his life he didn't know how to hold it all in.

"See what, Dean?" Sam asked in concern as he helped him back into bed. Sam was clearly floundering, trying to rationalize out his brother's unusual behavior.

Ambre had asked him once after she had almost died if this was all a dream. It had broken Dean's heart to tell her that it wasn't. But now for all intents and purposes...it had been. And he was the only one that had to live with that. Dean felt the laugh catch in his throat as he wiped at his eyes, Sam drawing the blankets up around him still waiting for his answer.

Sam stood his ground at Dean's side. "Dean, what's going on?" Sam finally couldn't wait for another disoriented answer. "They're saying you've been sick for days. If you weren't feeling alright, why didn't you tell me? We could have just made a stop at a clinic...held up in some other town to give you time to get better. Sure would have been better then this."

Dean slowly looked up to Sam with that same smile coated in sadness. "It hit me out of the blue and you were sleeping. The last few days were sort of rough, but I thought I'd be fine. I guess I was wrong. You seem ok though."

"Yeah I feel fine except you've got me a little freaked." Sam nodded crossing his arms across his chest. "So you haven't been keeping anything down? The Doctor said it looked like you hadn't eaten for days."

"I thought it would pass." Dean was very aware of the double meaning behind every word he offered and the half truths meant to spare Sam from ever knowing what could have been. "I'll be alright."

Sam raised an eyebrow and shook his head. "Yeah - alright" he motioned to the edge of the curtain where Dean had just been. "And that? What was that all about?"

Dean followed Sam's finger glad the curtain was now concealing the view as he swallowed again to get to the words there. "I guess I was dreaming...things seem a little weird..." Dean motioned to his head as he leaned way back against the pillows. "Must be the fever..."

"A dream...like a day dream?" Sam laughed as he sank into the chair finally seeming to realize that Dean was calm and content and looking a lot better.  
Dean met Sam's eyes, his sad smile growing. He had wanted to say it months ago...for it to be true. He would have given anything in that moment for it to have been true, now it took a heavy heart to admit it. To say it...and a part of him despite everything wished that they had won...that they had been able to stay together...to defeat the forces of evil...to be together. Not just him and Ambre and the baby along with uncle Sam...but his father...John who seemed to fancy Nessa...Dean almost laughed at the picture of Nessa as his stepmother. It was insane...it was the stuff of dreams so it wasn't a far stretch. "Yeah...like a daydream."

Now there was just one thing that Dean had to do...to make sure that nothing like that came close to happening...at least the horrors that he had seen. He had to kill Alturoc. His smile slowly faded.

"Just a vivid dream." Dean whispered. "But it's over."

"I'm just glad you're alright. You had me scared for a minute." Sam sighed rubbing at his eyes again.

"I'll be fine...you know it take more then some bug to keep me down." Dean scoffed. It felt good to pretend to be as close to normal as possible. Though in his mind he was vowing that Alturoc was going to find that out. "Sam, you mind finding me something to eat...I'm starving."

"Sure." Sam nodded slowly rising to his feet. "You sure you'll be alright here by yourself?" Sam paused at the curtain hoping Dean didn't have some fever induced hallucination, daydream, while he was gone. "I mean if you're still having these..."

Dean cut him off with a soft chuckle. "Go on will ya. I'll be fine. No more dreams...you're the one with the dreams...mine are over."

Sam reluctantly walked out into the hallway at that and paused again right outside the curtain. He looked back unable to shake the chill that had raced down his spine from Dean's uttering that his own dreams were over even against the smile that had been on his brothers face as he's said it. Sam shook it off though...it was just the fever...that's all it could be...right? 

_**A/N : There is actually a sequel to this one called "Playback" in the works.**_


End file.
